


Not So Different

by writingishard (camisadomg)



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Fights, Harringrove, Homophobic Language, Human Experimentation, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, experiment!billy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-22 16:59:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13171260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camisadomg/pseuds/writingishard
Summary: "That was the thing about Hawkins, Indiana. It wasn't special. At least, not in the ways that the kids all thought it was, the whole city in general seeming to hang under a dark cloud of... wrong. But Hawkins, Indiana was not alone in its obscurity. There were places just like it all over the United States, where lab experiments go wrong and children pay the price. Even somewhere on the other side of the country, an exotic place like California, had its own experiments."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i feel like this is becoming a popular theory so of course my greedy hands had to jump on the bandwagon too

Like all humans, Jane had been born. A mother went into labor and pushed a daughter into the world, and loved her with all of her heart, a bond unbreakable. Mother and daughter, daughter and mother. Unlike all humans, Jane was taken from her mother by people who did not have that bond with her, and who did not care about the hot debate of _nature versus nurture,_ it was all about chemical alterations and figuring out the universe, no matter the costs. 

Jane had been born, Jane had been taken, Jane had saved Hawkins, Indiana. She was a hero in her own right, and the tiny, unknown town remained that way thanks to her. 

That was the thing about Hawkins, Indiana. It wasn't special. At least, not in the ways that the kids all thought it was; Will taken to another dimension, Mike and Dustin and Lucas stumbling upon a strange girl called Eleven (Jane was just that number at the time), and the whole city in general seeming to hang under a dark cloud of... _wrong._ But Hawkins, Indiana was not alone in its obscurity. There were places just like it all over the United States, where lab experiments go wrong and children pay the price. Even somewhere on the other side of the country, an exotic place like California, had its own experiments.

There are some states that just feel impossible. Pennsylvania is a monster to drive through, Maryland is just a tiny blip of land on the map, and California sounds like another universe all on its own. The blasphemous west was no place for the citizens of small-town Hawkins. This much was evident when beach-babies Billy Hargrove and Max Mayfield blew in, tanned under the gray sky and ready to stir up trouble. Max, the younger of the two, was good. She was quiet and spent her days skateboarding around or kicking it at the arcade, destroying high scores and laughing at the Hawkins talent that would be wiped out in Cali. It was her brother that made the most noise. In fact, his entire being was nothing but noise, blaring music thumping the walls of the house and the interior of his car, hollering at parties, smashing and breaking everything in sight.

Billy Hargrove hated the small town with every fiber of his being. There was nothing for him there save for plenty of readily-available alcohol, and he planned to leave as soon as possible, back to California. He felt hooked there, like there was a string that attached his body to the state line no matter where he went, and all he had to do was follow it along to get back home. He didn't remember much from his childhood aside from his mother, but it was what he _didn't_ remember that attached him to the place.

Billy, like Jane and all humans, had been born. His birth was one of the special ones, and his youth was spent between white walls and monitors. When he moved to Hawkins, he didn't have any idea that there was another kid just like him in the area, a kid that had been raised in labs to manipulate objects and control them, raised to hone powers that were outside the realm of normal human understanding. Billy, Like Jane (but not like all humans) was an experiment. 

He was just a baby when they came and found him, his mother shrieking and clutching him and gripping his chunky arms hard enough to leave tiny fingerprint bruises, but in the end Billy became the property of the Sacramento Lab, injection after injection filling his body and growing with him.

For years, nothing happened. Billy had been branded with a small _004_ tattoo, and it was so early in the experiments that the doctors thought that maybe they weren't yet ready for the major changes they had been designing. The lab had infants _001_ to _006,_ a small group of first-wave, concentrated children that were deemed a failure and sent home, into the weeping arms of mothers and fathers that thought their babies were gone forever. Most were as young as two-years-old, and the memories of the lab would fade from their minds fast enough.

But there were effects. 

While completely different from Jane's ability to move objects with her mind, Billy had his own secret. He could heal people.

The first time it happened, he was just four. There was a cat that had been hit by a car, lying in the middle of the road, half-squashed and barely alive. Billy toddled out into the then-vacant road and stared at the creature struggling and twitching in pain, and he wanted to help it. His mother's voice was in his mind, telling him _don't touch the baby birds, or else their mommies won't come back,_ but this wasn't a baby bird and so he squatted down next to it and pet it. 

The tire mark began to fade, and Billy flinched when he heard the small pops of bones being brought back together, organs healed and returned to normal. Soon, the cat was standing and licking at Billy's hands, purring and rubbing against his legs affectionately, much to the little boy's pleasure.

_"Billy!"_ His mother had screamed, dashing out from where she had been watching through the kitchen window to scoop him up, sending the stray cat hissing away. She carried her son back inside the house and sat him in a chair, worry and pain streaking her face and Billy felt guilt blossoming in his stomach. 

"Mommy, what's wrong?" He had asked. "The kitty--"

"Billy you can never do that again, do you understand?" His mother's eyes were wide and there seemed to be a distance between them that Billy had never felt before. He didn't understand, but he nodded anyway, swallowing his words of defense. "Good," his mother sighed. "Why don't you go wash up, it'll be dinner soon anyway."

So the small four year old bounced away to the bathroom to wash the dirt and cat blood from his hands.

Billy made sure to never heal wounds around his mother. Sometimes, when he was older and began earning more scrapes from his own adventures, he'd peel off her lovingly-placed band-aids and heal himself, and his mother never seemed to notice those small things, so long as they stayed in Billy's bedroom where nobody could see him doing that.  
Then, when Billy was nine, a kid fell from the monkey-bars at recess and broke his arm, a split clean enough that the limb bent in a weird, comical way that made the young girls shriek and the young boys uncomfortable. But, before the teachers could rush to the victim's aid, Billy had fixed his arm. They stared at him, dumbfounded, not sure how to handle things.

Billy's mother, however, was a crying mess when Billy got home from school that day. She begged him to never use his powers, no matter how bad someone looked, no matter how easy it would be to help because, "They'll _find_ you, Billy, don't you _see?"_ And her tears were enough to lock the powers deep inside of himself, never to be tapped into.

Suddenly, Billy's hands went from healing to curled fists that destroyed anything and everything, breaking instead of fixing. He started getting into more fights at school, determined to cause more harm than good so that whoever _they_ were that his mother sobbed about would not find him or even suspect him.

Then his mother died.

It was so sudden that Billy could do nothing to help her, he wasn't even with her, and they couldn't even see the body because of how badly it had been ruined in the car accident.

From that day forward, Billy never used his powers. Not even when his father began to hit him and bruise him and tear him apart, not even then, because he had been breaking his mother's rules and then she died. He felt cursed, not gifted.

When he moved to Hawkins, it was after his father decided that everyone needed a fresh start as a whole family-- a family that felt too disjointed to function. Billy didn't want to risk bonding with Max and having her find out about his past, so he pushed her away. When she'd flip him off, he couldn't even be angry because he knew he deserved it. When she went gallivanting off with friends and Billy had to take the beatings for her disappearances, he thought that maybe he was atoning for all of his sins, going all the way back to helping the cat in the street when he was only four. 

Then there was the matter of Steve Harrington, king of the school. Billy was automatically drawn to the other boy's title, determined to take it and reign havoc on the town, burning it down with his very name. Sometimes, though, Billy would see Steve in the locker room with bruises and scratches and sometimes other boys like Tommy would tease him about bitches, but one day the injuries looked so painful that Billy half-wondered if Harrington had parents like his own. The idea was so laughable that Billy didn't entertain it for long, and instead kept his mouth shut whenever Steve took off his shirt and fresh wounds made themselves visible. Billy knew what love-marks looked like; he had received and given plenty, but the scratches on Steve's sides and back and stomach were sometimes too deep to be brought on by acrylic nails. 

Billy was in a new world in Hawkins, Indiana. What he didn't know was that he fit in more there than he would've alone in California, and he wouldn't know that until the day he stumbled upon Harrington and a bunch of kids, including Max, weeks after Billy nearly beat the life out of Steve, all yelling at him and telling him to _run, goddammit, run!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Mike Wheeler._

_Will Byers._

_Dustin Henderson._

_Lucas Sinclair._

_Jane Ives._

_Max Mayfield._

For the group of kids in Hawkins, Indiana, growing up happened a lot faster than it should have. It wasn't like they enjoyed fighting for their lives all the time, but it was like The Upside Down clung on through of their battles, staining their souls and tainting their youth. 

For a few months, they enjoyed normal lives. Well, as normal as they could return to after everything. They healed together, playing _Dungeons and Dragons_ in Mike's basement just like before, invading Steve's house for expensive, name-brand snacks and the big TV in the living room when his parents weren't around, and generally playing as twelve-year-old's should. Steve enjoyed the company in the house, too. The kids' bodies filled its empty halls that had been built for a family but were mostly occupied by Steve himself. Ihe raised voices of children arguing over petty things and bonding and loving each other in a way that could only happen after saving the world together filled the once vacant home, making it feel more complete.

It was a Thursday. The kids all met at the arcade after school, planning on spending the evening on video games and trying to skateboard with Max. Halfway between a Dig Dug marathon and a sugar high, Jane caught the sight of something slimy and dark creeping along the windowsill. Her hand grabbed for Mike's, but he was taking his turn on the machine so it fell into Dustin's and she slowly pointed toward the Demodog.

"Shit," Dustin whined.

"I know," Mike tossed over his shoulder, smiling triumphantly at the game screen. "I'm kicking ass!"

Dusting repeated, _"Shit,"_   his tone that time drawing the attention of Lucas, who was hanging over Max's shoulder to watch Mike's progress. He saw the tail-end of the creature disappear out of sight, and parroted Dustin. 

Mike only whooped at his encroaching victory, entering high-score territory, when Dustin grabbed his shoulder and shook him, messing up his flow. _"Hey!"_   he exclaimed, voice cracking, hands desperately flying to regain control of the small character moving on the pixels, but it was too late. Dustin shook him again, chanting his name in a low whisper that creaked and ranged different octaves. "What the _hell,"_   Mike pouted, turning to face his friend. "That's cheating! I was gonna--"

Jane said his name, and all eyes turned to her. Her hand was still raised, pointed toward the window. The Demodog wasn't there, but there was a trail of slime coating the bottom half of the pane. Mike turned and looked, fear drowning his senses, and saw only the dirty glass coated with years of sticky fingerprints and a questionable stain on the wooden ledge beneath it.

"It was..." Dustin began. "Mike, it was a dog." 

"Okay?" Mike questioned, feeling hot anger rise in his cheeks. He had spent a perfectly good quarter on his turn and the jackasses had cheated him out of a victory.

"No," Lucas cut in. "It was a _Demodog."_

Understanding dawned on Mike, and he walked slowly toward the window. Behind him trailed the others. Peeking over the ledge, he didn't see the thing, but he now noticed the slime trail that glimmered on the glass and wet the grass. The sun was beginning to set, they had been at the arcade longer than they had originally planned. "Y--you're sure?" He asked, wanting to believe that it had just been a gigantic snail that had left the gross trail, but he knew better than to ignore the facts. His mouth went dry, stuffed with cotton balls spun with anxiety.

Behind him, Dustin was losing his shit. "Someone call Steve." When no one moved, he forced himself into action, depositing his last quarter into the payphone on the wall. 

 

\---------

 

Billy couldn't sleep. It was a strange night where there were no parties being thrown and no fights to pick, and the house felt alien at eight PM, a time when Billy was usually never there. Every creak made him jump, like a little kid afraid of the monster under his bed; the angry father popping his head around the corner. He decided to go for a walk, because he could hear his father talking with his step-mother downstairs and he did not want to be around for when things inevitably broke into an argument. Max was already out, and Billy prepared this to use an excuse to go, but he didn't need one. His father was too busy yelling at his wife, pointing a thick, cigarette-stained finger in her face, to notice Billy slipping out of the house. 

He wandered through the small forest of trees that decorated the suburban haven, making it seem more wild than it really was. The trees gave way to peoples' backyards, and as Billy got farther from his house, he began to notice more area, less fences, and bigger pools. There hadn't been snow, but there was time yet for a white Christmas to make an appearance. Leafs crunched under his boots as he trudged along.

Then he froze, hearing sharp whispers floating through the trees. He glanced around but couldn't see anybody. A few yards away, light glinted on the surface of a pool that hadn't been drained for winter. Behind him, a sharp yelp rose in the air and it was quickly shushed by other voices. Curiously, Billy crept toward the noises. 

He peered through branches and a few stray leaves and could make out the slight details of what had to be Steve Harrington, his carefully-styled hair whipped astray in the breeze. It wasn't Steve's voice that Billy heard, though, saying they were sorry, it was just nerves. 

It was Max. 

He didn't want to fight Harrington again, but when would the guy _learn?_ Why was he constantly hanging out with Billy's twelve-year-old step-sister? Billy slipped out from his hiding spot, trying to remain quiet while still making his entrance as dramatic as possible. "Well--" he had started, but the rest of the words died in his throat.

Before him stood Max alright, red hair glimmering in the pool lights only a few yards away, but she was wielding a giant baseball bat studded with nails, red blood dripping from the spikes. Next to her was Harrington, with a similar weapon. There was the Sinclair kid with a slingshot poised and loaded with what did _not_ look like simple pebbles to shoot at cans with, and there were two other boys but Billy couldn't focus on them as all eyes snapped toward his voice. "Billy?" Max asked. Before he could regain his cocky composure, something shot out of the darkness and crashed into Steve, and with a yell he went flying back. 

Max ran to him, beating at whatever it was with her bat so that Steve could crawl to his feet, blood flowing from a new scratch on his forehead. The creature was beaten, but still twitched menacingly. "We need more space!" A young voice shrieked. 

"Run, godammit, run!" Steve shouted, swatting back at the kids and spreading his legs to firmly plant his feet, squaring up to the creature as it got to its feet and leaped.

Before Steve could land his swing, the Demodog froze in the middle of the air. A young girl stepped forward, hand raised, blood dripping from her nose. Billy thought, _She's doing that with her mind._

Jane flung it through the air with her powers, and the creature's neck promptly snapped on a tree. Billy jumped, watched as Max batted down another spawn before Steve rushed to crush its skull. Then the group stood around in a semi-circle, panting, letting the silence calm their crashing hearts. "I thought they all _died,"_ Steve said.

Before any of the kids could answer him, Billy said, "What the actual fuck?"

Max's eyes instantly flew to his, and her mouth hung open in a small "o" that revealed her shock. Billy heard Sinclair mutter, "Oh _hell_ no," but he could not stop looking back and forth between his step-sister and Steve Harrington, waiting for some sort of explanation.

Finally Max managed to ask, "Billy, what are you doing here?" She let the bat drop to the ground, though Steve gripped his tighter.

"Look," Billy began. "I've been leaving you alone, like you asked. But what the _fuck_ were those things? Max, we need to go home and--"

"No!" The girl with the nosebleed exclaimed, and Billy fixed her with his gaze. He stepped toward her and the whole group tensed, but Billy merely brushed by to get a closer look at the dead lump of something on the ground, toeing it cautiously.

"This whole town is batshit insane," he muttered. He looked around at the others, all watching him with wide eyes. "Well? Is anyone going to tell me what the hell is going on?"

A new voice piped up saying, "Oh, no. No, no, _no._ There's no way this asshole is joining the party--"

"We have to tell him something," Mike argued, speaking as though Billy wasn't only a foot away and could hear him just fine. 

"We could erase his memory," Dustin suggested enthusiastically. "El! Erase his mind--"

"You know that's not what she does," Mike chided, rolling his eyes and groaning. 

"Guys," Will tried to get them to quiet down, but the boys were going at it. Billy almost gave up and just walked away, but the stench of the dead thing at his feet kept him hooked to the scene.

Finally, Steve sighed loudly. "Hey!" He exclaimed, voice a stage-whisper of seriousness. "Shut up, shitheads. We need to get out of here." He glanced down, but already the corpse of the creature was withering away, becoming nothing. "Let's go to my place for now, and then I'll drive you all home."

"Are you their mother?" Billy taunted, trying to find any sense of normalcy in the situation by mocking the other boy.

Steve just huffed past him, the kids trailing behind like a mother duck with her ducklings. Billy wanted to laugh, but forced himself to keep it down and fall in line as well, marching past the creature, careful to not step on its body. The trees passed by and they approached a pool, the same pool Billy had noticed before stumbling upon the group, and they all entered the house beyond it. Billy was last, and Steve slammed the door behind him, quickly throwing the bolt in place.

Once inside, the doors locked and curtains drawn, Steve instructed the kids to sit down in the living room and "watch TV or something." Dustin and Lucas were arguing over who weld their bat better, Max or Steve, and Mike was worrying over Will and asking, "Are you alright? Are you _sure?"_ Jane gingerly took both of their hands and walked toward the couch to rest. Steve waited for them to settle, glancing over them for bruises or blood, only satisfied once he confirmed that everyone was okay and still had all of their parts. Billy stood behind him, waiting. 

The two hadn't spoken since the incident at the Byers' house. Billy simply kept his word with Max and backed off, avoiding Steve on the basketball court and not bothering to shower after gym to eliminate the risk of being in the same space as Harrington. It made things easier, anyway, the less he saw of Steve. It was Hawkins, not California, and while punching Steve was not the same as caressing him, it was a kind of _touch_ and Billy was petrified that old habits would take hold of him again. That was the last thing he needed.

He watched Steve watch the kids, and from his position he could see a small freckle on the back of Steve's neck, hiding right above his shirt collar and below where his hair started to curl away from his skin. To distract from his thoughts he asked, "Shouldn't we... I don't know, shouldn't we call the police or something?" He blinked, and saw the creature flying through the air. He shuddered. "Holy shit," he groaned, beginning to feel panic blossom in his chest, deadly flowers taking root in his lungs. "Seriously, Harrington, _what the fuck?"_

Steve finally turned to him, brown eyes cold and gleaming with hatred. Instinctively, Billy's hands curled into fists by his sides. All he needed was for Steve to throw the first punch so that he could hit back in 'self-defense'. It would be the perfect outlet for the nervous energy bundling itself low in his stomach, but the hit never came. Instead, Steve's voice was soft, low, tired. "There's a lot you don't understand, Hargrove."

Steve recounted his memories of The Demogorgan the previous year, lead his way slowly into the details of the past few months, the Mind Flayer controlling Will Byers, and Eleven-- Jane-- finally closing the gate, killing all of the creatures. Or so they thought. "But the kids called me up earlier, said there were more and... well, you saw the proof." He spoke with such obscure calmness that it just  _had_ to be a fairy tale, or some kind of fucked up prank.

Billy stared at Steve for a long time. He had a vague feeling of remembering something, like a word on the tip of his tongue. The girl they sometimes called Eleven but also sometimes called Jane had used her _freaking mind_ to kill the beast. Billy's fist twitched, uncurled, shook. "This is fuckin' crazy," he spit, rather than freak out.

"You keep saying that," Steve sighed with a roll of his eyes. He snapped away suddenly, turned his attention back to the living room. Eleven and Mike were dozing on the couch, Dustin was sitting far too close to the TV, Max perched herself on the ottoman, Lucas sitting close to her feet, and Will had moved to the floor, a spot between them all. "I have to drive them home," Steve sighed. "S'a school night." He hesitantly extended his offer to take Billy home with Max, and was relieved when the boy refused, declaring that he was just fine walking home. He wasn't afraid of the monsters, no way, he wasn't even completely convinced they had been real. 

While Steve piled the kids into his car, Billy lit a cigarette and began walking down the sidewalk. He wasn't going back to his house, not yet. He kept picturing the monsters, but when he walked back into the forest he could not find the bodies no matter how closely he examined the ground. He was beginning to think that maybe he really had gone to a party after all, and the Hawkins crowd had finally stepped up the drug game and he was on one fuck of a trip. Probably he would snap back to reality, hungover at somebody's house, maybe that Tommy kid that seemed attached to him.

But, he continued to wander, tossing away his cigarette and crushing it under his boot after only a few drags, and his head began to feel foggy. He looked at his watch, but couldn't see the time in the darkness. It couldn't have been that late, he had only just left Harrington's house. He glanced around and realized that he didn't recognize the section of wood that he was in, and the panic that had nestled in his chest flamed up again. Everything seemed too dark. His hands stung, slightly numb from the cold, and his head felt worse. It was beginning to pound. He was beginning to regret tossing his cigarette away.

As Billy walked on, trying to find familiar ground, Jane sat in the back of Steve's car, the last of the group to be taken home, since Hopper's was the farthest away. She was quiet, but this didn't bother Steve. She had always been quiet, even more so around anyone who wasn't Mike, but whenever Steve glanced in his review mirror at her, he was struck by a pained look across her features.

"Everything okay?" He asked. Her eyes flickered to his in the reflection, and she nodded, forcing her face to appear neutral but only succeeding in painting herself with a caricature's expression; exaggerated, far from the real thing. "Are you upset about the Demodogs?" Steve coaxed.

Her response was a mumbled, "A little."

"A little," Steve echoed, feeling a little awkward trying to communicate with the girl without Mike's help. "What do you think this means?"

She whispered, "Bad." 

Silence fell in the car again, but Steve didn't have to suffer through the awkwardness for long, as he was pulling swiftly up to the area outside of the secluded house. "Careful," he called to Jane as she began to walk away. She raised a hand and waved, but the expression she had tried to wipe away had returned, and Steve shivered. 

Jane was thinking about Billy. 

She hadn't interacted with him much, only seeing him when he came to collect Max from their meetings and hangout spots, and she hadn't spoken a word with him. She thought about how he had looked at her when she protested him taking Max home, how his eyes seemed to _know_ even though the rest of him clearly did not. There was an odd vibe that he gave off, dramatically changed from the events at the Byers' house, and Jane began to make connections between Billy and Kali Prasad, but the idea was so ridiculous that she shook it off as she kicked her shoes away once inside. 

Hopper's voice called, "Jane?"

"Yes," She replied, and he happily came out of the kitchen area, sporting the TV dinners that had become symbols of home and security in her mind. 

They ate in the usual silence, and then Jane went to bed, trying to ignore the urge she had to examine the underside of Billy's arm for a tattoo the next time she saw him.

 

\--------------

 

There was a piano, propped open and waiting, dusty keys clean in only the spots that were most frequently tapped. Billy stared at it, taking it in. His mother had begun to teach him to play, but he knew that it was not the right time to hop on the bench and disjointedly patter out _Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star._

His father sat next to him, stiff-backed and pale. They were sitting in the pews of a church that they never really went to together, but that Billy's mother visited devoutly every Sunday. At the front of the room, marring the piano's peacefully position, was a casket. Closed. 

_My mother is inside of that,_ Billy had thought, and he imagined walking up to it and propping it up like the piano's cover had been, opening it and saying, _"Hey, ma, wake up."_ Then his mother would smile up at him and say, _sorry son, I dozed off for a little bit there._ Billy pondered over how easy it was for him to fall asleep during a sermon, his eight-year-old mind tired from his father's late-night yelling and already forming its own opinions on the existence of God. Eventually, he had fallen asleep one too many times and his mother stopped making him go with her. 

But there was no getting up and opening the casket. His mother wasn't simply having a cat-nap in the sacred light of the church, she would never. He was only eight, but he understood that the casket was going in the ground, with his mother's body, and he wouldn't ever see her again. 

At first, Neil Hargrove withdrew into himself. Billy would try to gain his affection in the only way eight year old's know how; drawing him pictures, telling him about school, bringing him botched breakfasts in bed, but nothing worked. His father was gone. The man that had yelled loudly and hugged tightly was gone. In his place was a stranger that laid in bed for days on end and worked only as much as was necessary to get by.

After a year of this, Billy began to fight even more than before, provoking kids until they hit back, and then he'd let them hit him because the pain was some kind of emotion other than desperation and loneliness. Every drop of blood that he shed felt like a river of pain being set free from his heart, especially because he refused to heal himself. The ache would last for days, and Billy would bask in it. After months of refusing to tap into his abilities, Billy began to feel as though he had dreamed up the whole thing. What a silly thing to imagine, being able to heal himself! 

_Yes, silly Billy,_ the ghost of his mother's voice agreed.  _So so silly._  

He'd skip school to go to the beach, and by the time he was in middle school he ruled with a reputation to match a different boy's more than a couple hundred miles away. 

It was his Freshman year of high school. His father had married some woman named Susan and her daughter came whirling into his life, and for the most part it was okay. Billy ignored them as best as he could. It was easy enough, because whenever he looked at Susan for too long he began to notice just how different she was from his mother physically. Her dark hair blotted out his mother's sunshine curls, her brown eyes never shone like his mother's bright blue ones, and Billy felt the differences in his soul. Soon it was nearly impossible to look at his new step-mother without bursting into tears.

_Boys don't cry,_  rasped The Cure in 1980 and Billy quickly stopped tuning into the boppy hits of the radio, preferring to drown himself in loud percussion and screeching guitars.

"That music is garbage," one of his friends from California teased him. 

"Better than the shit on the radio," Billy had countered, but he didn't really mean it, not to that boy at least. He had been Billy's first kiss, during a time when kissing the other boy made his heart leap in a way that he hadn't felt since his mother was alive.

But then his father saw them. 

They had been in Billy's room, after school. Billy turned up his music loud enough to rattle the walls a little, and he hadn't been able to hear his father coming home, screaming for him from downstairs. That was the first time his father beat him, something that went far past a smack on the bottom when he was a toddler or the twist of his ear when he got sassy. His father had spat, _"My son is not a faggot."_ Billy had heard that word thrown around in the locker rooms at school, and he never paid much attention to it. But then, it flew from his father's lips and landed in his ears like hot coals, burning into his brain as _wrongbadwrong._

After that incident, Billy crept out to the beach and waded in the Pacific waters that had cradled him just as much as his own mother had. He wandered the beach for hours, feeling blood dry on his forehead and noticing the difference of the swollen skin around his eye. His foot sank into loose sand then, his foot tripped on a stray tree root in Indiana.

The ocean had roared in his ears.

The crickets sang in his head.

The water had splashed on his toes.

The dirt filled his boots.

Billy was fourteen, running from his father and aching for his lost mother.

Billy was seventeen, running from the edge of memories, from real monsters, trying to get out of the forest and back to the beach. 

The closest beach was miles away in either direction, and eventually the memories won. 


	3. Chapter 3

Jonathan Byers was kissing Nancy Wheeler.

Actually, they were kissing _each other,_ there was a difference, at least in Steve's mind. If it was just Jonathan kissing Nancy, that implied that Nancy wasn't actively a part of the emotion-- Jonathan was merely putting his unwanted lips against hers. But kissing _each other_ meant both of them, equally, wanted the other. This conclusion had come to Steve after watching them make out every day before school for two weeks. His heart still felt like it was breaking, and yet Jonathan was kissing Nancy and Nancy was kissing Jonathan.

Eventually, Steve started parking on the other side of the building just to avoid the sight, even though it meant needing to take the longer way to his first class. 

The new developments didn't break up the group. In fact, the trio hung out more than they had before, probably due to bonding over the end of the world and monsters bent on killing them. Nancy still helped Steve with his essays, and Steve even posed for Jonathan when he needed a guy to stand in a shot on camera. It was odd how they fell so easily together, but it felt right. The kissing was the only problem for Steve.

Snow started falling down as Steve pulled into his new, far away spot in the lot. The flakes were big and probably wouldn't stick anyway, but the kids bounced with excitement around him. Dustin vibrated with joy as he rolled down the window to catch flakes before pulling it back into the warmth of the car when Steve chided him for letting out the heat. "Whatever, mom," Dustin teased, eyes crinkling with his happy-smile. 

Steve sighed, the nickname making him want to grind his teeth together, as if he could chew the label _mom_ up and swallow it, to then eventually shit it out. He hated it. But the kid was only joking, not like Billy had been the previous night. Mike, Dustin, Will, and Lucas were placing bets on how much it would snow and how much would stick. Jane would've watched with amusement, but Hopper had taken schooling into his own hands for now. They had started riding with Steve in the last few weeks, "Because it's fuckin' cold out," Steve had huffed, opening his doors for the loud, obnoxious, dirty, amazing kids. None questioned his new parking habits.

"It's gonna be a white Christmas," Dustin declared.

"It's the last day before break," Steve started, dimming the festive mood a little. "Please, try to stay out of trouble." He hated the words as they came out of his mouth because they did sound so _mom_ ish. He threw in, "No pet demons from another dimension."

Despite everything, the group laughed. 

Steve killed the engine, and the heat rapidly escaped the cracks of the car. It could've never existed, it disappeared so quickly. They all got out and started their own ways, Steve to his first class and the others to meet up with Max. Only, Max was nowhere to be seen.

Usually, she'd be riding around the back lot until the late bell rang. Or, she'd be waiting just inside by the main entrance to keep warm. But she was nowhere. Neither was Billy nor his loud car, and the group was struck by how empty two missing students made the whole school feel. The truth was, no matter where Steve parked, there was no escaping Billy.

In the past few weeks, the other boy had been backing off. Steve was filled in after a few days on how Max had basically saved his life, and by what measures she had achieved peace from her step-brother. For the most part, Billy seemed to be keeping his word, but was still everywhere. He still played basketball and ruled the court, he still dominated the locker room and the parties, but there was something quieter about him. Something that seemed to have gone dormant, at least for the time being. 

The first bell of the day went off, and the younger members of the party scurried to get to class. Steve ambled slowly, avoiding the crowd of students as much as possible. He strolled to his desk right before the late bell rang, and took out a notebook, even though he hoped the teacher wouldn't be doing much the day before winter break.

After school (and a lot of notes, because apparently teachers don't understand the concept of winter break), Steve waited in his car for the younger kids as usual. It had started snowing harder, large half-frozen flakes changing into smaller, colder mounds of snow on the ground. The blacktop was dusted white. Five minutes passed, then ten, and then it was approaching twenty minutes past when they usually came barreling into his car, and Steve began to feel a little worried. He tried to rationalize, but his mind kept picturing a Demodog cornering them, or the group doing something dumb like going after one without Steve's help. 

After twenty minutes, Steve reached for the key in the ignition, going to shut the car off. Then, there was a knock on the window and he jumped out of his skin. Max's wide eyes stared at him mischievously. She motioned for him to get out and he did, though he left it running since it had just started to warm up. "What're you doing here?" He asked, looking over her head and seeing the other kids a little farther away with none other than Billy standing in front of them. "What's going on?" Steve bristled, curled his gloved hands into fists, and began marching over. Max rushed to catch up with the sudden movement, stopping Steve with a hand on his forearm. 

"Wait," She panted. "He's not going to hurt anyone-- I think."

Steve looked back at her, uneasily stepping back and forth, half between moving into action and keeping himself back. "Where were you two today?"

Max shrugged. "He wasn't home this morning. My mom was at work and his dad was off doing God-knows-what, so I just laid low. Then he came home around lunch and he was, well, he seemed... weird."

"Did he hurt you?"

Max quickly told him, "No. When I asked where he had been he looked like he was on some kind of drug or something and he said," Max took a breath before quoting her step-brother, _"'I had to go back to Cali.'_ But he wouldn't say anything else. Then he was saying he was gonna apologize to everyone and insisted I come with him. And here we are."

"It takes longer than a day to get to California and back by car," Steve pointed out. "Is he on drugs?"

"I don't think so." Max couldn't take her eyes away from where Billy stood in front of Lucas. Neither her nor her step-brother were properly dressed for the chill, but neither seemed to notice. Max had a sweater and scarf on, hands stuffed into the pockets of her jeans. Billy was even worse off, his light leather jacket whipping in the wind and showing his low-cut tee-shirt, the same as he always wore. Both had melted blots of snowflakes on their clothes and frozen bits in their hair.

"Let's go," Steve said, resuming his walk toward the small group, this time with hands uncurled.

The two walked in during a rant from Dustin. "... You mouth-breathing _asshole,_ wait until Steve-- oh, hi Max." His toothy smile didn't match the tone of his voice, and Steve had to keep from laughing at it all. Then Dustin was facing Billy again, smile gone, eyes dark. "Steve'll kick your ass."

_Been there, done that,_ Steve thought.  _Except my ass was the one to get kicked._  Billy glanced at the other boy, eyebrow raised. He then announced, "I'm not here to fight."

"Then why are you here?" Steve asked, before Dustin could go on another tangent.

Billy shuffled awkwardly on his feet. There had been very few times in his life when he apologized genuinely to someone he had wronged, and between those rare moments, half-assed apologies had been beaten out of him by a father that claimed it all to be lessons in respect and responsibility. 

Despite Max's words, Steve tensed, waiting for the old Billy to erupt, to push the younger boys or even try to beat them up. Steve knew he'd try to stop Billy, and probably really get killed this time around since Max didn't just carry sedatives around with her at all times. Instead, Billy opened his mouth. It was then that Steve noticed that Max really didn't look anxious or scared. "I just wanted to say that I'm sorry," Billy admitted. His voice was low and gravelly, but it didn't sound insincere. "For everything. Picking on you, especially. Being a dick. You know."

Lucas floundered for words. He looked to Max, who was just smiling brightly between the two. Finally he managed to say, "Well... y--yeah, man. Okay."

Billy turned to Steve, though he didn't quite meet his eyes. "Sorry for almost killing you. I know what it's like to get the shit beaten out of you, and I'm sorry for doing that."

Steve hadn't expected anything more than a grunt to the kids and a kick to the groin, so he only blinked and frowned for a few seconds before saying, "Whatever, man." He couldn't quite believe that someone like Billy knew what getting the crap beat out of him felt like, but he wasn't going to challenge the boy at a time like this. 

Billy nodded almost minutely, then stuffed his hands in his pockets and started to walk off. "I'll wait in the car," he called back to Max. "Happy friggin' Christmas."

Once he was far enough away, Lucas visibly relaxed. His shoulders slumped a little and his breathing became regular and his figure became more flexible rather than rigid. "What was that about, Max?" He asked.

"Remember how I told him to leave everyone alone? All of us," She added, throwing a glance toward Steve. "But he had come up to me today and said he wanted to apologize to you." She shrugged. There was something else, something she wasn't telling. _I had to go back to Cali._

In the distance, there was the faint thump of music. Some things never changed, Steve supposed. He looked over and saw Billy sitting in his Camaro, cigarette between his lips and head back. He looked smaller. Not literally, but like he had no energy left in him to appear as supreme as he usually did. "Does this mean he has _emotions?"_ Mike asked, huddled close to Will, who looked buried under layers of winter clothes.

Max started to say, "I mean..." But stopped herself, resisting her urge to look back at Billy in his car. She shook her head, and then straightened her back. "Hm. We'll hang out over break, yeah?" She started walking away before the others responded, though the answer was obvious. Of course they'd hang out. The wind picked up, carrying away everyone's words until they managed to pile into Steve's car, though at that point Billy and Max had already driven away.

Nobody spoke much about Billy after leaving the school parking lot. In fact, by the time the car was vacant, only Steve was thinking about the haggard look in the other boy's eyes, the split lip, the scratch on his cheek, the smallest, faintest red blot on his neck from where Max had plunged the needle into his skin, irritated from the cold. 

When Steve got himself home, his mother and father were busily decorating the house. The smell of cookies and turkey and pies and bread filled the air, and Steve knew that there was going to be a holiday party. Maybe for his father's company, maybe for his mother's social life. He didn't know exactly, but he did know that it wouldn't be too hard to sneak out to Stacey's or Tommy's or Jessica's or whoever the fuck else was throwing parentless parties that night.

While Steve helped his mother hang holly and mistletoe, Billy was still driving home. He was smoking quietly, the music turned down. He looked thoughtful, and Max almost didn't want to ask, "Where the hell were you today?" But in the end, curiosity won.

Billy didn't look like he was high anymore. When he answered, he sounded more sane. "I went for a walk last night, stayed out."

"We missed school today, Billy," Max told him, as if he hadn't waited around until the end of the school day to actually go apologize. 

"I know, I'm sorry. It's one day, we won't miss more." 

Max was floored. _One_ genuine apology from Billy sounded impossible, but _two_ in the same day had to be some crazy hallucination. "I don't care about missing," she told him honestly. "But, you know what would happen if... if you got caught."

She didn't look directly at him, but saw the way his body tensed, the way his knuckles whitened with his tight grip on the wheel. He didn't berate her. Instead he asked, "How do you know about that shit?" Billy had always assumed he had gotten his punishments when Max was out of the house; _because_ Max was out of the house.

"I've seen the aftermath. Mom filled me in on the rest." Max responded. Billy didn't say anything to that. He pulled into their driveway, started to get out. "Seriously, is everything okay?"

Billy looked back at her, half-out of the car. "Just doing what you asked."

Max was jostled a little by the force of him closing his door, but quickly followed. Not five minutes after they had settled inside, her mom came bustling in. "How was school?" She asked, unwrapping the scarf from around her neck and hanging her coat on a hook. 

"Fine," Max lied quickly, easily. Billy wondered what is was like to live a life unafraid of your parent.

Susan Hargrove glanced at Billy, and he shrugged, looking away. "Okay," She said. "I have to get dinner started. Do you two need anything?"

"No," Max answered again. Billy started off to his room. 

"Billy," Susan called, stopping him. "Can you help me really quick? Just with a little thing."

Max and Billy exchanged a look, but Billy obeyed, not wanting to upset his father's Queen. He saw her biting her nails anxiously, going to the coffee machine to start it up. "You have to clean yourself up better," she told him once enough time had passed for Max to be out of earshot. 

"Huh?"

"The scrape on your cheek," she clarified, turning to him with such an emotional look in her eyes that Billy had to blink. "Was it the belt?"

Billy had a flash of a memory of walking through the woods behind Steve Harrington's house, wandering, tripping, falling. He didn't know which explanation would be safer to use. If he started blaming every scratch and bruise on his father, where would that lead him? So he just shrugged. 

Susan sighed, wiped her sweaty palms on her pants. "Here," she beckoned, picking out a clean rag from a drawer and heading toward the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, probably for peroxide, Billy assumed. When she returned, brown bottle in hand, dampening the cloth, Billy had to step back.

"I'm fine," he told her, trying to make his voice as venomous as possible. "It's too late to clean it. Aren't you supposed to do that when it's fresh?"

"Better late than never," Susan frowned, placing the bottle on the counter and raising the rag toward him, offering, coaxing.

Billy bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from yelling. He hadn't yelled in a long time, what felt like forever, and he had yet to find another way to get rid of his anger that worked just as well. He took another step back and spit, "You're not my fucking mother," and exited. He marched to the bathroom upstairs, slammed the door shut and went to the mirror, examining the scratch. How had he gone the whole day without seeing it?

Why couldn't he remember the whole day?

He looked at the scratch, angry and red on his skin that was pale from the cold, and wracked his brain trying to remember. He knew he had been out the night before, just like he had told Max, but he couldn't remember what he had done that morning or right before he had come home. His memories of the day started with him walking through the front door around noon, Max peeking down curiously from the top of the stairs and the house eerily quiet.

Sighing, he touched the scratch.

Then he lost his fucking mind.

The injury on his face disappeared. It didn't just smear, or smudge, or bleed, it completely disappeared, healing itself right before his eyes. He pulled his hand away, and there wasn't even the faintest trace of blood on his fingers where he had touched it. "Holy shit," he whispered.

His head started throbbing, sharp needles shooting up from the base of his spine to the center of his skull. He groaned from the sudden intrusion, and he remembered being four years old and his mother-- his real mother, not Susan-- yelling at him for doing... _something_ with a dead bird that he couldn't quite place. He thought about  _The Dead Zone_ by Stephen King.

He remembered something from before that, and was it even possible for someone to remember something from such a young age? But there he was, in a big white room surrounded by beeping machines and weapons and a lot of blood and

_(Billy look at that kitty don't you want to heal that kitty it's going to die Billy)_

_(Silly Billy Silly Billy Silly Billy)_

_(Your mother is dead you fucking waste of breath don't you understand get the fuck out of here)_

Billy gasped against the pain, tears streaking his cheeks, gliding over the smooth surface of where the scratch had been just moments earlier. "Mom," he muttered, wiping viciously at his eyes to clear them. He couldn't see his own reflection, only her face when he stared in the mirror and he gripped at the sink until his fingers ached to keep from smashing the glass. He had to be going crazy, he had to be seeing shit. But wasn't that what he had thought last night in the woods, when Steve Harrington had smashed in the skull of some alien-demon thing?

He opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out his razor, pulling apart the already opened shirt. He shaved ritualistically, keeping his chest smooth and facial hair as fashionable as possible. He pressed the blades onto the familiar starting point, right on his breastbone, and felt a flaring pain as red blood dripped from under the newly-sharpened blade. He forced his hand to drag, then let the razor clatter to the floor as blood pooled on his smooth skin. 

Heart beating hard from pain and excitement and fear, Billy slapped his palm flat over the injury. He cut a little deeper than he had originally intended, and the warm red liquid was quickly spilling through the cracks of his fingers. The pain began to fade, and Billy was a little too nervous to check and see if it was due to the fact that he had closed up the wound, or perhaps it was just the initial shock of the cut fading away. 

Slowly, he lowered his hand. 

The only evidence of a cut was the blood smeared on his hand and on his chest, but other than that he was perfectly fine. 


	4. Chapter 4

It was a typical Hawkins party but it was a party nonetheless. Billy hadn't been to as many as he would've before the events at the Byers house, as getting high and wasted made him more prone to yelling and breaking things. So he kept his distance.

But that night, that was a night for him to get so drunk he'd pass out for three days. That was the goal, at least. He'd take whatever meager drugs the richies could supply and fuck whichever girls he pleased, because they all wanted him anyways so why not? Yes, Billy Hargrove was aiming to get so wasted that his mind would reset, that whatever glitch was happening in his system would right itself and bruises would stay the proper amount of time on his skin. That night, he'd fight the whole shitty town if he had to, to fix himself.

He did his ritual for getting ready; styling his hair, tucking his clothes just so, everything he needed to seduce the world. He forgot his coat when he sneaked out, but he didn't feel cold. He never really felt too hot or too cold, and he wondered if that was due to his abilities but he shrugged the idea away as his engine roared to life. The curtains of a window pulled back and Max's curious eyes followed him as pulled viciously out of his spot and remained on the car until it was out of sight.

Typically, Max wouldn't care what Billy did. In fact, she wouldn't have minded a Demodog biting him in the ass and teaching him a lesson. But that was _before,_ before her idiot step-brother started behaving like a decent human being. The idea of him being ripped apart made her heart twist oddly, but there was nothing she could do. He was so far away that the loud noise of the engine was gone as well.

She tried to calm down by reminding herself that since killing those two Dogs a few nights ago, there hadn't been any other sightings. But Jane had closed the gates and days, weeks passed with no sightings. There was no telling when one of the evil things might appear out of nowhere and attack. 

By the time Billy pulled up to the house in question, the party was in full swing. He parked a little farther than he would've before, taking his time in ambling toward the music and the beer and the warmth, cigarette lit in his hand. Part of him imagined walking right past the party and continuing on, but his feet moved toward the scene they knew so well. It wasn't long before a beer found its way into his hand and a girl found herself wrapped around his arm.

He danced, but it didn't feel right. He drank, but the alcohol did little for him. He tried to fuck the girl, but wasn't into it. 

He shouldered his way outside. He wasn't embarrassed about anything, the girl just wasn't doing it for him. The whole party felt wrong. His body moved on autopilot, but his mind was far away. Outside, a few boys stood around smoking, and a few couples made out, oblivious to the world around them. Billy heard someone shouting his name with, "Keg time, king! Where'ya at?" He just sighed, taking another puff of his second cigarette of the night. He decided that the party was lame as hell, and that's why he wasn't getting smashed like usual, because there was nothing exciting enough to get wasted on or with. 

He flicked the cigarette away and smothered it in the crunch of the fresh snow, dirtying the toe of his boot. Someone said, "Party's inside, Hargrove," and Billy had to hold in a surprised shout.

He looked over and saw Steve Harrington. "Yeah, well, I'm leaving."

Steve's left eyebrow twitched. "Leaving before the keg stand? I thought that was your thing."

Billy shrugged. "Nobody can beat my record. There's no sense in doing it all again." He began to walk away, but Steve put a hand on his shoulder and his touch was so hot but so cold at the same time that Billy couldn't even flinch. 

"Hey," Steve started. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothin'," Billy huffed, finally shrugging Steve's hand away. "Party sucks, that's all."

"Is it about the other night?" Steve asked. 

Like Max, Steve would've gladly cheered on the Demodogs as they tore into Billy, but something seemed so wrong about the guy... it was like he was a whole new person. Billy sighed and leaned his back against the wall. He looked up at the sky, though there wasn't much to see through the clouds and the light pollution. "Kind of," he admitted. "Not totally."

Steve hummed, leaned back on the wall too. He listened to the faraway music battle against the crickets' natural song, and thought that it wasn't so bad, talking with Billy. Quietly he said, "Thanks for apologizing to the kids."

Billy chuckled. "Protective of your babies?"

"Shut up," Steve groaned, though he was not really upset. "Really. All of the stuff with the end of the world really fucks with them. Having someone be decent does more than you think."

"You're decent," Billy pointed out. It was an odd compliment, but it was something.

Steve scrunched his nose. "I don't count. I'm the babysitter."

"Nah, those kids adore you," Billy insisted. "I hear some of the things Max says on the phone. You're, like, their idol." Steve refused to accept Billy's words as the truth. He kept his eyes focused on the dirt, kicking at stray pebbles and taking note of how cold his toes were. Wisely, Billy took a deep breath, preparing the words on the tip of his tongue. Then, in a rush he says, "It's the ex-girlfriend of yours that's got _you_ really fucked up."

Steve doesn't argue with that. 

"I don't know what your hangup on her is," Billy continued, and it was honest confusion, not a jab meant to strike Steve where he was most fragile. But the other boy winced.

"I was in love with her," He told Billy. "I still am."

Billy frowned and turned to the taller boy. He was never good at emotions, neither his own nor anyone else's. He couldn't imagine how he could possibly comfort Steve. But since the night was not turning out to be one of getting wasted and disappearing into oblivion, he decided to take risks in a different way. He began talking before he had even thought of anything. "I was in love, in California."

The words sounded foreign. Billy snapped his mouth shut. Gleaming brown eyes swirled in his mind, and laughter drifted through his ears. Not from the party, but from a distant, dream-like memory wherein someone is laughing at his dumb jokes and kissing him softly, almost afraid.

This confession made Steve's eyebrows shoot up. "Yeah?"

Billy nodded. "Yeah, he was really... something." 

The pronoun slipped out smoothly, and Billy forced himself to keep eye contact with Steve. He could see the other boy processing the words, rolling them around in his head. "What happened... with him?" He eventually asked, and Billy knew it would be the perfect opportunity for Steve to ridicule him, to announce to the whole school, _hey, Billy Hargrove likes dick!_ But Steve just stood there, waiting for Billy's story.

Billy was ready to tell him, but there were things he was just unable to remember. He couldn't remember the boy's name, or the color of his hair, or what kind of music he liked. _I tried to laugh about it, hiding the tears in my eyes, 'cause boys don't cry,_ played in his head, and he shuddered. "It was Freshman Year. I don't know how serious that counts for, but yeah." He shrugged, letting his weight fall mostly against the plaster of the wall. The thump of music traveled through his bones and crickets sang to him from the trees. And his father's fists flashed in his mind, screaming _badwrongbad_ but Billy didn't care. "My dad caught us."

Steve wanted to move past the implications in Billy's tone. "Do you still love him?"

Billy let himself think about the question for a moment. If only he could remember his name, maybe then he could remember how intense his feelings had been. "Nah," he finally told Steve. "But I think a part of me is always going to remember him, in some way. Maybe not completely, but." He shook his head, "Anyways, my point is that there are plenty of bitches in the sea."

Steve stepped back, letting his body roll so that his back was against the wall rather than his side. He looked back up at the sky, still cloudy, still polluted. "I thought you fucked girls," he muttered. His cheeks were pink, but Billy blamed it on the cold.

"Here I do," Billy told him. As he spoke, his memories became more solid. There had been a time when his dick wouldn't get hard for _any_ girl. But, like repressing his abilities, it had been easy to teach himself how to get with a girl. Repress and forget, repress and torment. How had all of that be forgotten in such a short amount of time? "Not a lot of boys to go around." Something hot flashed in his blood then, and he found himself straightening up. "If you tell anyone, Harrington--"

"Yeah, yeah," Steve waved the half-formed threat away. "Look. I don't care who people kiss or love. Everyone needs love."

Billy just hummed, and fell back against the wall, flame quickly extinguished. "Everyone needs love," he repeated, liking the way the words sounded.

Then Steve Harrington was kissing him. It was not graceful, and the air shot from Billy's lungs from both surprise and the force of Steve's body. Then, just as fast as it happened, Steve was gone. Billy tried not to sound angry when he whisper-shouted, "What the fuck?" but he didn't succeed.

Steve, at least, looked embarrassed. Or flustered, or both. "I'm drunk," he told Billy, but his breath didn't have the slightest scent of alcohol to it.

"That's not a fucking game, Harrington." Billy made sure he stood firm. When Steve kissed him, he remembered everything about the boy from California. His heart pounded. The clear memories were fading fast. How had he forgotten them so quickly, so easily? He was right there, kissing him in Billy's room, music blaring so loud that the thump of his father's footsteps couldn't be heard. It hadn't been until Billy was grabbed by the scruff of his shirt and ripped back, sent flying across the room that he even realized it had been his father. Then the boy from California was running, bursting from the house without even pausing to put his shoes back on. Billy never saw him again. He had to throw the shoes away the next day.

He thought that he saw a little of that boy in Steve Harrington, the brown eyes and the concerned glances, but Steve was so _opposite_ of everything Billy had sought out then.

Steve said, "I wasn't playing any games."

Billy saw his father in his mind, towering over his scared, four-year-old body. His mother was shouting, _"No, Neil, no!"_

Billy was shrieking.

Outside, in the road, a cat that had recently been brought back from the brink of death paced on the front porch of Billy's home.

Billy's father pressed the burning stub of his cigarette into Billy's skin, right over the small number tattooed on his arm. He had pressed until the bud was smothered, ashes streaking his recently washed hands. Then Billy was fourteen, kissing a boy that touched the burnt spot with such carefulness that Billy wanted to cry.

Steve was snapping his fingers in front of Billy's face. "Hey," he shouted.

Billy blinked, and glanced around. He was in Hawkins, Indiana. He was seventeen years old. Steve Harrington just kissed him. Billy leaned forward then, as Steve had moved closer during the short amount of time that Billy had spaced out. He returned Steve's kiss before the other boy could run, and made sure to pull away just as fast. His arm felt like it was on fire, a spot just above the inside of his elbow feeling pricked by a needle.

Before things got too quiet between them, Billy asked, "Need a ride?"

"No, I drove here."

Billy smirked. "Thought you were drunk?"

Steve muttered, "Not drunk enough," before he started to turn away.

"Remember," Billy called after him. "Plenty of bitches in the sea!"

It was easy to not worry about Steve. He had, according to Max after all, saved the world. The boy would be able to get back to his house safely enough. What was harder was trying not to think about what the implications of kissing Harrington were. _He's just getting over a broken heart,_ Billy rationalized. _Heard my sob story, saw an opportunity._ He also thought that the odds of someone like Steve Harrington actually liking dick were very, very low. Indiana was not California.

Despite this, heading home that night was a lot easier than leaving it. His car was parked where he had left it, and he happily got inside. He knew he shouldn't be so happy, not after remembering such gruesome things and kissing _Steve-fucking-Harrington,_ but he didn't have the energy to be angry or confused just then. He had all of winter break to mull things over about Harrington, and when school started again he would be prepared to face whatever reality happened with the other boy. 

But his father was waiting for him when he got home. Billy pulled himself up through the window in his room, landing smoothly and quietly on the wooden floor. He almost started laughing with crazy pride at himself for no reason at all, when the lights snapped on. Standing in the doorway was Neil Hargrove.

"What were you doing, son?" He asked. Billy almost went right back out the window, but his father was faster, using Billy's shock against him. "Were you out partying?"

Billy scrambled for an excuse, anything to save himself, but then he looked over his father's shoulder and saw Max's worried eyes shining from across the hall, peering from her own bedroom. Billy thought that honesty might be the best route. "I went to a party," he told his father. "But I didn't do anything. Barely stayed for an hour." 

Neil leaned in close to his son, inhaled deeply. "I smell the alcohol on you," he whispered. "Why lie?"

Billy wanted to argue that maybe his father was just smelling his own breath, but held his tongue and took the first hit without any fuss. He thought it would be a quick night, and then his father would go off to the living room and pass out in his TV chair or something. 

But then the red on his cheek was rapidly disappearing, and there was no pain at all on Billy's face. He could see the confusion in his father's eyes, but watched as that gave way to recognition, and then understanding. He reeled back and hit Billy hard enough to split his lip. The blood flowed for only seconds before healing. He twisted Billy's arm hard enough to pop it and rip a piercing scream from Billy's lungs finally, only to have it be straightened out and functioning perfectly a few seconds later. "Please--" Billy sobbed, not used to his father escalating his beatings so quickly. 

"Are you doing that bullshit?" His father spit, hooking his thumb through his belt loops and undoing it, raising it high above his head, poised to strike. Billy hadn't gotten the belt since he was little, but the sting was as familiar and painful as it had been when he was young. He was knocked to the ground. If only there were another syringe for Max to plunge into her step-father's neck. 

Each time his father ripped a new onto his son, the bruises would heal automatically. Billy didn't even need to touch them; he didn't even think about what he was doing. His father shouted, "I thought you were _fixed!"_ Before continuing his actions. He sounded disgusted and bewildered, like he was dealing with some alien creature. Like he was smashing a bug or whacking a rat. Billy heard more mumbles from his father but couldn't pick out words.

And Billy thought that if only he could reach into his heart, dip into his soul, he could heal whatever damaged part made him kiss that boy in California and kiss Steve at the party. He thought that he could heal it, that's why he had been given those powers, to fix himself. Why else would his father be beating him? He hadn't been using his powers right. He hadn't been using them at all. Maybe he could finally stop feeling like he was lost in a never-ending daydream.

The final time his father's fist hit him, Billy remembered the lab in California completely. It wasn't a child's fragmented recollection, but a crystal clear image, filmed and stored away in his brain, just like how he remembered things after Steve had kissed him. He couldn't remember being an infant, his thoughts began somewhere around eighteen months, when he barely had a tooth to call his own. At that point, there were only the injections. Billy lived a mostly-incubated life. Breakfast was a lukewarm bottle of formula paired with an injection, with the same for lunch and dinner until Billy became too old for formula and began taking his shots with solid food.

But it wasn't just getting injections. There were tests. The men would hurt animals and even the other kids to provoke Billy, and the scenes that came back to him hurt more than his father's boot did in his gut.

His father spit out, "Freak and a faggot, just my luck."

Billy listened numbly as his father's footsteps faded, replaced by Max's feet pounded toward him. She knelt on the ground. Her hands fluttered all over Billy, searching and examining. "Billy, I thought he was gonna _kill_ you," she panted, hot tears in her eyes.

"Just a few scrapes," Billy sighed, giving into the spreading pain of unhealed wounds.

"We need some help," he heard Max declare, and started to protest but she was gone. 

Not even a full two days into winter break, and Steve's phone was ringing off the hook. He had been watching TV, doing nothing fantastic in the big, empty house. His parents' party had ended by the time he sneaked back into his house, and the mistletoe looked menacing in the lonely moonlight. "Hello?" He prompted the caller.

A harsh sob attacked his ear, and he flinched. _"Steve,"_ Max's voice blubbered. She sounded like she was trying to be quiet but aching to scream.

"What's wrong?" Steve immediately began to try recalling where he had last hidden his baseball bat, feet beginning to tap anxiously in that direction.

"I-it's--" Max broke off with a hitch of breath. "It's Billy."

Steve felt his cheeks flush at the memory of kissing Billy just a few hours ago. He suddenly became very aware of the fact that his parents were asleep right above him, catching Z's before they needed to head out the next day. Steve felt the blood pumping in his veins turn hotter than lava. "Max, what did he do to you?"

_I kissed that,_ he thought bitterly. He hadn't really thought of the event. He had just walked home, letting the cold carry away his thoughts. He hadn't driven like he had told Billy, but the walk was a welcome respite to think about a lot of things, things that weren't the end of the world for once. Could kissing Billy Hargrove fall into the _End of the World_  category, though?

The seething question was followed by more sobs and Max repeating, "No, no, no, no," until finally she calmed down enough to say, "He didn't do anything. He's hurt, real bad. I-- I can't explain it all over the phone but I just, I need some help, okay?"

The angry heat left Steve's blood. Followed by a dash of guilt, which was easily shrugged away. "O--okay."

He picked her up from where she had been calling, at a payphone on the corner by her house. She wouldn't tell Steve why she hadn't used her own phone, and there was the gruesome image of Billy missing some sort of appendage due to Demodog attacks, but Max was insisting that there were no Dogs. 

Steve turned his headlights off before pulling into the Hargrove driveway, just in case, but he then saw that the Camaro was the only car in the vicinity. "Your parents out?" He asked Max, and she nodded.

"Mom's workin' a night shift," she explained. "His dad just went out. Won't be back for a while."

She slowly lead Steve toward the house. Max pictured the building raising itself up on wooden beams of feet and towering over her and Steve, until collapsing and crushing them both. She just reminded herself that, _duh, houses don't just come alive and kill you,_ but it was tempting to just avoid going back inside altogether. 

She pushed open the front door and paused, listening. She heard the running of water through a pipe and assumed-- hoped, really-- that it was only Billy, and nothing else. "Okay, he's upstairs," she told Steve, whispering more out of habit than necessity.

They crept up the stairs together and Max's eyes went to the light shining through the crack of the door that lead into the bathroom. She walked over and knocked.

The water shut off before Billy called out, "Yeah?"

"Billy, it's me." Max was staring hard at her shoes. She hadn't bothered taking them off at the door. "Do you need any help?"

"No," Billy answered. The water turned back on. 

Max frowned and pushed on. "Billy, let me help you, I--"

"Max, go _away."_ Billy's voice sounded so tired when he called out that Max almost gave up. She turned to apologize to Steve, but the other boy's eyes were shining and he looked a little too determined. 

When he spoke up, it took a few syllables for his voice to regain its strength. "Hargrove, open up."

The water shut off again. Steve and Max heard a bottle of something crash to the floor, and Billy cursed under his breath. Then the door was flung open and there was Billy, body made less of skin and more of bruises. 

"You brought Harrington?" He groaned. _"Fucking hell."_ Steve rushed forward and Billy jumped against the intrusive feeling of Steve's hands on him, checking him over. 

Steve paid no attention to Billy's protest. "Your dad did this to you?"

Billy shrugged, pushed Steve away, ignored the shine in the older boy's eyes. Steve looked over at Max, who had her head hanging down to avoid looking at the scene before her. "Does he ever hurt you?" Steve asked her and oh, Billy understood things very clearly then. Steve was only there out of concern for Max, not for Billy at all. Billy tried to blame the ache in his chest on the bruises from his father, but he knew it was something deeper than that. Steve was looking back at him. Max had insisted that no, Billy's dad didn't so much as look at her half the time. "What the hell, Billy? You need to do something about him."

"It doesn't fucking matter," Billy spat. "I can just--"

But he couldn't. His mother had begged him to hide it, his father wanted to beat it out of him. He couldn't just heal himself. He couldn't risk Max and Steve harboring the same feelings of disgust for Billy like everyone else around him seemed to upon finding out his secret. But Steve was waiting expectantly for the rest of Billy's sentence.

"--Shake it off. Go for a walk. Stay low."

Without looking toward her, Steve said to Max, "Can you leave Billy and me to talk for a sec?"

"Uh, sure." 

The door closed softly behind her. As soon as it did, Steve was leaning forward, grabbing Billy on either side of the face and kissing him hard. When he leaned away he whispered, "I wasn't drunk." 

"Duh," Billy teased, though his joking tone wasn't very convincing. 

"Billy," Steve frowned. "You're a goddamned, _motherfucking_ asshole. And, in case you haven't noticed, you're a guy. You may have yourself all figured out, but this shit is serious. I'm questioning my whole existence right now."

Billy looked at him seriously. "It doesn't have to be like that." He straightened up, pulling out of Steve's grip. "You fuck girls, and you kissed one boy. It's not the end of the world."

Steve barked a sharp laugh at the parallel between Billy's words and his own thinking, and the other boy gave him an odd look. The laughter quickly stopped when Steve saw the bruises illuminated in the bathroom light. "Still," Steve shrugged. "It's _you."_

Steve regretted his phrasing as he watched Billy's face fall. "It doesn't mean anything," Billy whispered harshly, and turned away from Steve, moving to pick up the bottle of Peroxide that he had dropped. "You were drunk."

"Billy--"

"Go away, Steve. I'm fucking _exhausted._ Tell Max I'm fine."

Steve floundered between going toward Billy and doing as he was told. After a second that stretched into eternity, he walked out of the bathroom. In the end, he knew that he and Billy would talk about everything. Maybe they would fight, throwing their fists and raising their voices, but that was a problem for the future, a bridge to burn when he got there. Max was sitting at the top of the stairs, biting nervously at her nails. She looked over her shoulder at the sound of the door closing. "How is he?"

Steve sniffed once. "Fine. Not as bad as I thought he was going to be when you were talking about him."

"You didn't see the way Neil was going on him." Max's eyes were dark. "I couldn't fucking _do_ anything."

"Hey," Steve began. "It wasn't your job to do anything."

"He's been so different," Max continued, as though Steve had never spoken. "It's like I dreamed up the old Billy. Then again, his father is enough explanation for anyone's behavior." She sighed. "Do you think he deserves better?"

Steve moved passed her, just far enough down the stairs so that Max could look at him through strands of hair, not necessarily moving her head. "Everybody deserves love."   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me @ me: its too early in the story to have steve and billy kiss/exchange emotions  
> also me @ me: its never too early in any story for this garbage 
> 
>  
> 
> heyyy so this chapter sucks but the rest that i've been planning out a little is a lot more clear and written a lot better


	5. Chapter 5

_The tiles were always spotless. Though he had never seen anyone cleaning them, Billy thought that maybe all floors in every building were as shiny and white as the one beneath his feet then. He always enjoyed counting them; he counted a lot of things, he had just learned how to get all the way to twenty. He was on tile six, though he had to backpedal because he sometimes mixed up six and seven. Then came eight, then passed nine, and finally on ten. Proudly, he searched the white room for the familiar face of his Father, but could not find him anywhere. So he continued walking and counting._

_It wasn't until tile fourteen that Billy noticed something wrong. There was a tiny drop of something red on the always clean, always white tile. He bent to examine it, poking it, smearing it a little. He felt guilt chill his heart, not wanting Father to be mad at him for making some sort of mess. When he looked ahead at tile fifteen, he saw more drops. Beyond that, the drops clustered together forming red streaks that looked wet like water but felt viscous like syrup (but not sticky, Billy noted)._

_There it was, on tile twenty. The source of the red stuff._

_Billy had scraped his knee once before, and in his young, two-year-old brain, the connection was made. The red stuff was blood, and the child on the floor before him was bleeding heavily. Billy recognized the kid as a boy that he had passed before in the halls, but he didn't know his name._

_He took a step back, feeling a little sick by the blood. Scraping his knee had hurt. He howled like there was no tomorrow, and he couldn't imagine how bad that other boy must be hurting._

_"You can help him," the deep, familiar voice of his Father spoke from behind him._

_Billy turned, eyes wide, reaching up with grabby hands, begging to be taken away from the sight._

_"Help him," the man insisted, stepping away from the child's grasp._

_Billy felt hot tears streaking his face. He didn't really understand what was happening, other than that the boy was dying on the ground and he was supposed to save him. He wanted to, but how? "He's dying," The man yelled. "Do something! Save him!"_

_When Billy looked again, the child's body was gone. Instead there was the crippled, dying form of a cat, flattened oddly in the middle. Also bleeding. "Don't touch that," a new voice whispered, one that sounded far away. He couldn't quite place who it belonged to, but he felt like he should know._

_He reached toward the cat anyway, but right as he touched it, it exploded. He was covered in blood and guts and he felt like vomiting and he was shaking so bad--_

Billy sat bolt upright in his bed. Panting, he looked around. It was dark, the only light coming in through his window from a streetlamp outside. It had only been a dream.

Still unable to shake the feeling of reality the dream had left him with, Billy went to the bathroom and examined his body. No blood, no cat-guts. Just the same bruises from his father a few hours ago. He squeezed his eyes shut and then looked down, but the white tile of his bathroom floor made him feel sick and he had to go back to his room.

He knew it hadn't been just a dream.

Slowly, Billy ran his right hand up his left arm. He didn't look at what he was doing, just let his fingers search. His mouth was dry, but he couldn't stop swallowing anyway.

There. A small bump, a scar. It was from his father's cigarette, years and years ago. The heat had seared away evidence of Billy's life in California, but his father's words had simply been stored away. Like always, he supposed.

Billy didn't leave his room the next day. Max anxiously knocked at the door for a while before giving up. His father was somewhere unknown, and the only person that was brave enough to actually open the door was Susan. Billy half-expected her to appear with a bottle of brown Peroxide, too late once again but willing to try anyway. Billy pulled his blanket tighter around his shoulders. 

Susan's voice had never been a strong one. She was timid, for good reason. When she said, "Billy," it came out in a whispered huff of air that sounded defeated. 

"Door was closed for a reason," Billy grunts from beneath his covers.

"Well, it wasn't locked." 

He heard footsteps, wondered if she would be brave enough to try and sit on his bed like a mother coming to check on her ill child. _Oh, I'm ill alright,_ Billy thought. But Susan didn't sit. Curiously, Billy peeked. For a moment, Billy sees his mother, his real one. But it was simply a trick of the light. Susan stands with her head down, hands folded in front of her, like a dog with its tail between its legs. "How bad was it?"

"Max told you, huh?"

"She was scared for you, Billy." 

Billy doesn't have a response to that. Instead, he just sighed and put up a defensive wall. "What do you want, Susan?" 

She flinched at his use of her name. When Billy's father was around, it was expected that Billy call her 'mom', and Susan had grown quite used to it. "It's Christmas Break," she pointed out, as though Billy could have forgotten the blessed reprise from school. "I wanted to know if you wanted to help Max and I with baking the cookies."

Billy pulled his blanket back over his head. "Max doesn't want me bothering her," he said. "I'm just fine right here."

"Actually, she asked me to come ask you," Susan informed him. "I tried telling her you'd be grumpy, but--"

Billy flung the sheet off and sat up in the bed, light streaking across his face revealing the discolored blotches of bruises. "I'm not _grumpy,"_   he told Susan. "I'm fucking _beat._ Literally. I'm sorry I don't want to bake any goddamn cookies and pretend that everything is okay, when you know that everything sure as hell isn't." Using profanity in front of Susan was liberating for Billy. A little slip of language meant dealing with his father, but his father wasn't there, so Billy let it loose. "I'm not a fucking kid, either," he continued. "You know how much it fucking sucks living here? I hate it. I hate my dad, and I hate you, and for a long time I hated Max but it turns out she's not as shitty as I thought. But you know as well as I do that as soon as that fucking school lets me, I'm out of this shitty town and you'll never see me again. So fucking save it."

Susan was able to remain calm. The curse words didn't bother her so much as the agony that was pouring from Billy's eyes. "And where are you going to go?" She asked him.

Billy scoffed. "Like I'd ever tell you."

"Billy, I'm not your father. I--"

"You're no better," he snapped. "You stand there. You just watch. You're not innocent. I hate you, too." 

Susan tilted her head, frowned slightly. She no longer looked like a scared puppy, but seemed more like she was examining Billy, scrutinizing him. "Alright. I'll tell Max you were too tired to bake cookies." She turned to go without saying another word, and Billy didn't stop her.

The smell of cookies baking in the oven wafted throughout the house. He heard Max and her mother laughing and singing Christmas songs. Instinctively, Billy wondered when Neil would show back up. He heard the phone ring downstairs and Susan's muffled answer followed by her shouting out, "Max, it's for you!"

Billy tried to pick up the words, thinking about Steve Harrington, but couldn't get anything through the floorboards and semi-cracked door. After a few minutes, Max's feet came pounding up the stairs, heading toward her room. Billy waited for her to pause outside of the door, but the feet zoomed past, and her bedroom door slammed shut. Billy slipped out of bed and made his way over to the wall that joined the two rooms, pressing his ear up against the plaster. Max's voice was still muffled, but he could at least tell what she was saying.

"... Sure it was one?" Billy heard, followed by silence as the person on the other line spoke. She finally said, "Call Steve. Tell him to just pick me up here."

Billy bristled, wondering what Max was being so secretive for. He pictured the demons leaping at her and he shuddered, then he remembered the girl with the bleeding nose. Max said, "No, I'll just say Jane and I are having a sleepover. Not a total lie."

Billy drew back from the wall and tiptoed is way out into the hallway, careful so that Susan wouldn't hear his steps. He crept to Max's room and pushed the door open. Whirling around, Max nearly dropped her phone out of her hands (Billy had been jealous that Max had her own line in her room, but later figured it didn't matter much since nobody called him anyway).

"What's going on?" He asked. His voice felt weak.

"Billy," Max gasped, like she had forgotten he was alive. "There's been a... one of those other things. Lucas saw it."

"Oh," he nodded, like it was a completely common, normal conversation. "The demon thing, yeah. Don't tell Harrington to come pick you up, I'll take you wherever it is you need to go."

"I-- are you sure?" Max asked, eyes shifting cautiously over the bruises on his face. She marveled at how healthy he already looked, just a day after a beating like the one Neil gave him. 

Billy shrugged. "Got nothin' else to do."

"You could bake cookies with Susan," Max teased, wrinkling her nose at the awkwardness that came with calling her mother by her first name.

"Ha-ha. Like I said, I got nothing else to do. Take it or leave it."

Max stared at him, mouth slightly agape, ready to argue more. But then the voice on the other side of the phone buzzed and Max blinked her attention back to it. "Yeah, tell Steve, but don't tell him to come pick me up," She glanced over at Billy again. "I have a ride."

 

\------------

 

For once, Steve's parents were home, so the party had to quietly congregate in Steve's living room under the threat of facing his parents wrath if woken up, though Steve knew they could sleep through nearly anything. "What the hell," Dustin whispered, voice going up no less than three octaves from fear. "I don't know about you guys, but three Dogs after we thought they all died-- I'm losing my shit."

"You're always losing your shit," Lucas responded. "But we need to stay calm."

Half an hour ago, a frantic Will, Mike, Dustin and Lucas showed up at his door, banging it down until Steve sprinted from his room to keep his parents asleep. He liked them more when they weren't awake anyway, it was easier. Quieter. In rushed whisper-shouts, the boys had explained what Lucas had seen, all talking over each other until Steve eventually heard enough and ordered them to get to his car so they could go get Jane. Now, they all sat around his living room, quietly sipping on soda that they really shouldn't be drinking so late at night and trying to keep the world safe. All of them except for Max.

"You called her, right?" Dustin asked Lucas.

Lucas frowned and told him, "You literally _just_ listened in on the conversation. She said she had a ride."

Just then, a flash of headlights poured through the windows and the familiar roar of an old engine filled Steve's ears. "Billy brought her?" He asked.

"Yeah, who else?" Lucas asked.

A new tension filled the room, all bodies stiffening except for Jane, who curiously stared at the door and yanked it open with her mind at just the right moment, revealing Billy standing with Max, arm half-raised and ready to knock. He dropped it awkwardly, looking around for the person who answered it and eyes flying to Jane, putting two and two together, but only getting three because he was still very confused. After stepping in with Max, his eyes connected with Steve, who looked like he had been slapped. Billy dropped his gaze and avoided the others. 

"I'm helping too," Billy said, voice low and gruff, almost missed by the others. 

"Ha, no way," Dustin cut in, too loudly. Steve hushed him, throwing a glance over his shoulder, petrified of his father or mother meeting Billy. Especially after everything. 

Billy glanced at the younger boy, but there was nothing menacing in his stare. He simply said, "Trust me, you could use me."

"Look, you can't just _wail_ on a Dog, okay? They don't get knocked out in a fist-fight, they fight to the _death,"_   Dustin explained, eyes going wide.

"So you guys, a bunch of twelve-year-old's, can fight to the death but I can't? Harrington, what kind of fucked up daycare are you running?" Billy shook his head. "I'm helping. I'll stay back. But I'm not just dumping Max off here now that I know what's going on."

Dustin opened his mouth to argue even more and even louder, but Jane interjected. "We need him."

All eyes turned to her. Billy saw the understanding in the young girl's eyes, and he knew that she had found him out. She had weird powers too, though, so who was she to judge?

"That's it," Dustin scoffed. "El's lost her mind! We're all going to die!"

"If El trusts him then so do I," Mike announced. Dustin winced at the betrayal. 

"Me too," Will added.

Lucas shrugged, Max nodded her agreement. Then they all waited for Steve's final word. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, feet slightly spread. He gazed hard at Billy, sizing him up while also gauging how injured he still looked. "If Hargrove wants to join the death mission then we can't stop him," Steve finally shrugged, dropping the guarded pose and pinching the bridge of his nose. Billy felt something warm spread in his chest at the acceptance, but kept his mouth shut to help contain his smile.

"Alright, look," Steve began. "We need all the help we can get, so I'm going to call Nancy and Jonathan. If Hopper and Joyce want--"

"Not my mom," Will suddenly spoke up. Even Steve was surprised by the out of character outburst.

"Al...right," he nodded. "If Hopper wants to join, he can."

Steve dialed up Nancy and tried not to be surprised when Jonathan answered the phone. Through gritted teeth and deep breaths, he explained the situation. Ten minutes later, the two were in the living room. Sitting together of course. 

"I thought Jane closed the gate," Nancy said after being filled in. 

"Yes," Jane answered. "There is... something more." Everyone waited for some kind of expansion of the statement, but her eyes were worried orbs that stuck to Mike's face.

"Well, do you know how to fix this, too?" Nancy asked.

Everyone except for Billy missed the slight glance his direction before Jane focused back on Mike and said, "No."

"My vote is that we do this in daylight," Billy announced suddenly. For the most part, the others had forgotten he was standing there. "Nothing good happens at night. It's harder to see. We'll think clearer in the morning, too."

"Yeah, and in the meantime a bunch of Demodogs roam all over the goddamn place eating people," Dustin hissed with a roll of his eyes. 

"If they've been roaming all over the place the past few nights then I'm sure eight more hours won't hurt. But that's just my opinion." Billy fell silent with the rest of the room, and he kept his head down despite feeling sixteen eyes burning into his skin. The truth was, he didn't like those woods at night. It  _was_ dark, and it  _was_ harder to see, but Billy could only remember the dizzying sway of the earth and the pounding of ocean waves in his head. He hoped that California would stay away in the daylight. He didn't have the energy to deal with it at the moment. 

Steve was the first one to say anything. "He has a point." Though there was no audible response, Steve could tell that the kids felt slightly offended by his agreeing with Billy. "We can all just stay here, tell my parents it was for a school thing. They won't even wonder why we have anything to do over break, and then we can work on this tomorrow while they're away."

As though she had been waiting for permission to do so, Nancy let out a huge yawn. "Good, because I'm tired. I'd fall asleep in the woods."

"Alright," Steve sighed, moving from the bridge of his nose to his temples, pressing in hard enough to turn the tips of his fingers white. "There's two guest bedrooms, one down here and one upstairs. you guys can divide that up, the beds are big enough for at _least_ three bodies. There's the couch, too."

"I'll take that," Billy said. Dustin didn't have a problem there.

Steve, on the other hand, stopped pressing on his temples and looked at Billy, worry creasing his brow. "You sure?"

"Yeah," Billy nodded. "Trust me, I'm fine. I heal fast." He had to hold his breath to keep from laughing at his own joke that only he got. Steve stood in the living room with Billy while the others cleared out, rushing to their respective rooms. Jonathan, Nancy, Mike, and Jane went to one room; Dustin, Lucas, and Max went to the other.

When they were gone, Steve snapped to action. "I'll get you some blankets."

Billy wondered what it was like to have so many spare blankets, watching Steve bring in a mountain of sheets with a pillow on top. He tossed the stuff onto the couch and sighed. "Look, I can sleep on the couch if you want my bed."

"No way, Harrington. I told you, I'm fine." Billy walked to the couch, tossed the pillow to one end to hopefully save his neck that night.

"I don't want you to be uncomfortable with all of the bruises and injuries and... stuff."

"Like I said, I heal fast." Billy ignored the blankets for the moment and just sat down, resting his heavy head in his hands. "Besides, I almost killed you. I can take the couch as repentance."

Steve groaned, "You already apologized for that."

"Doesn't matter."

He felt the couch dip with Steve's weight, and his heart sped up. "Billy, I--"

"I don't need pity, Steve. I can handle my own shit."

"I know that," Steve countered. "Can't you let me finish a sentence?" Billy didn't say anything, waiting for him to go on. "I was just gonna ask how you are. Really, no bullshit."

"No bullshit?" Billy echoed. "I've been better. Actually, I--"

_Bad Billy don't tell anyone Billy They'll find you Billy silly boy Billy_

"--I'm just laying low."

Steve nodded even though Billy wasn't looking at him. "Jane likes you, at least."

Billy hummed and then asked, "So, what's her deal again? She can control stuff with her mind?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Steve tells him. "She's fucking awesome. I never thought I'd be jealous of a thirteen-year-old girl, but here I am."

"Right," Billy laughed, a genuine emotion that burst out of him like the beat of the drum. He liked Steve Harrington, in the dangerous way that made him want to go to the ocean and never come back. 

"Well, I'm gonna hit the hay," Steve announced with a groan as he stood up. 

"Yeah." Billy turned to grab one of the blankets but Steve was thinking the same thing, and their hands collided. Steve stared for a long time at their fingers, Billy's short ones resting under his own longer ones, until he finally gathered enough courage to cup Billy's hand and squeeze it, not making eye contact. Then in an instant, the pressure was gone. Maybe it had never been there. Billy blinked rapidly and grabbed the blanket, flinging it and himself backward on the couch, covering himself in a fluid, well-practiced motion. "Thanks," he said from under the cover. He wasn't awake long enough to hear Steve's reply.

Billy dreamed a lot that night but could remember none of it, a first for him. Steve, however, barely slept at all; the thought of Billy laying alone on the couch kept him awake. He had meant what he said when he told Billy that he wasn't playing games, and knew that the ache in his chest at the sight of Billy's bruises went deeper than just a friendly concern. Eventually, he passed out above his sheets, still in his jeans, teeth unbrushed. He had to be shaken awake by Dustin, who was frantically trying to placate Steve's confused mother. Fighting through the haze of four hours of sleep, Steve sat up and groaned, "Moooooom,"

She came whirling into Steve's room, and just the sight of her worried eyes made Steve angry. What right did she have to be concerned? "Steven, what in the  _world_ is going on here?"

"You and dad went to sleep early last night," Steve lied, knowing that the two had been too drunk to make a sober argument against him. "But there was this school assignment we have to do over break, yeah, even the younger kids. Like a school-wide thing. So we were working on it last night, and it got too late so I figured they could all just crash here."

Lying to his parents was easy. Steve never felt guilty, because most of the time his parents never even noticed the lie. Steve was a drug-free golden child, so they trusted him. His mom visible relaxed in the doorway, hand brushing through her half-curled dark locks. Behind her, Steve's father was tiredly walking his way to the bathroom, not really concerned with the extra bodies in the house. The remaining hair on his head was matted from the bed, and he scratched tiredly at his bare stomach, smacking his lips to wake up the sleepy taste in his mouth. "Well," Steve's mom began. "Your father and I will be out all day today, there's a lot of work to do before the holiday. Will you be okay here?" 

"Always am," Steve smiled sadly. He wanted to ask his mother why they always had to work, and if they weren't working then they were partying or socializing, but why? What was the point when most families would just have quiet nights in together? But Steve was eighteen, and didn't want to make such childish statements in front of Dustin, who held him in his gaze with apotheosis.

After a mad dash of showers and breakfast, Steve's parents were gone. Everyone was awake; the kids eating various sugary bowls of cereal, Jonathan and Nancy cooking in the kitchen, Billy drinking coffee in the corner. Steve tiredly poured himself a cup of caffeine and stood next to the other boy, watching the scene before him with a sense of pride and belonging. He didn't even flinch when Nancy leaned over to peck Jonathan on the cheek, he was too focused on Billy and his lack of bruises.

"You  _do_ heal fast," He noted.

Billy raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, kinda my specialty."

Steve ignored the sharp drop in his stomach at hearing Billy's groggy morning voice. He swallowed a scalding gulp of coffee and asked, "So the couch was okay?"

"Harrington, that shit is softer than my mattress at my house. It was more than okay." Billy had meant it as a joke, but Steve didn't laugh. "Seriously, stop worrying all the time."

The thing was that Steve couldn't just  _stop worrying all the time._ He was Atlas, and the world bore down on his shoulders with the weight of pre-teen glorification and demons from alternate dimensions. "Just trying to be a good host."

Billy shrugged. "Can I smoke in here?" He asked. Steve told him it was fine and Billy moved away from the group to light one up. Steve half-wondered if that was all of Billy's nutrition, coffee and cigarettes. Before he could ponder on it for too long, all of the kids started piling their way to the sink to dispose of their dishes. Steve would have to wash those, he supposed. Nancy and Jonathan, at least, were cleaning as they went. 

More than anything, Steve wanted to just let them all hang around all day, doing nothing. He craved the normalcy like air in his lungs. But he had seen what those creatures were able to do, and before the kids could get comfy in front of the TV, he took his stance in front of them, hands on hips, dishtowel flung over his shoulder. "We need to plan," he started. He saw how quickly the smiles fell from the small faces around him, and it hurt a little. But he pressed on. "I think we should go to where we've seen the things, and try to look for clues about why they're still hanging around."

"Yes," Jane piped up from the couch. Billy's blanket was neatly folded on the back of the cushions, and Steve couldn't remember doing that. He didn't want to give so much credit to Billy. Maybe it was his mother. 

"Okay, but what if we go there and there's a million of them just waiting?" Dustin voiced his concern.

"We have our weapons," Mike said. "Who knows, maybe it's just stragglers. Without the Mind Flayer, they might just be hanging on to nothing."

"But all of the other ones died," Lucas pointed out. "When El closed the gate. They just vanished."

"There's energy here," Jane spoke. "New energy. Makes them excited."

"New energy?" Steve asked. "Well, how do we get rid of it?"

Jane's eyes wandered to one of the windows, the sliding glass doors that led to Steve's pool, which was covered for the winter. "It has to leave."

"Well, yeah," Lucas sighed. He was always the first to get impatient with Jane's cryptic insights. "But how do we _make_ it?"

Silence stretched in the room. Jane looked smaller than ever, short hair a mess and legs tucked up under her chin. Quietly, almost so quiet nobody really heard her whisper, "Ocean."

Billy perked up. "We have to go to the ocean?" He stubbed his cigarette out in an ash tray and joined the group. Though they were still uncomfortable with his presence, nobody flinched or tensed up. 

"That can't be right," Max said, obviously just as interested as Billy. "There's no ocean near here." But Jane had fallen silent, eyebrows pulled together, deep in thought.

Billy thought about the woods, thought about how he had gone back to California just by getting lost in them. It was almost like magic, like he had been transported to the beach where he could remember his infancy with clarity. He knew what needed to happen. He had to get back to that area, and he would understand more. It had to work. The kids were all looking between the older ones in the group, waiting for direction. "Let's go to the woods," Billy said. 

     


	6. Chapter 6

Sometimes, Nancy missed Steve. She knew that she didn't love him like she loved Jonathan, but she missed him nonetheless. Having him there for Jonathan's photo-shoots or helping him with essays wasn't enough. Steve had changed, and Nancy wondered if it was because of how broken his heart still was. Walking in the woods, she gripped Jonathan's hand tightly and stared at the back of Steve's head. She was holding the rifle in her free hand; Steve had his bat. Occasionally, Jonathan would stop to snap pictures to look at later. She never thought that she would be back in this sort of situation, hunting down monsters from another world, she thought all of that was over. But Mike needed her. 

And she couldn't let down Barb.

So Nancy went into the woods with the others. The kids were huddled together in the middle. Billy Hargrove walked in the back, goddamned Billy Hargrove, smoking a cigarette and humming under his breath. She didn't know why he and Steve had been hanging out more than usual, after all, she had seen the aftermath of Billy's fists on Steve's face. She tore her eyes away from Steve and glanced over her shoulder at Billy, who was looking into the trees. Billy had changed, too. She heard the kids talking sometimes, when they came to play in the basement at her house, and Max had started saying less variations of how much of an asshole Billy was and more regular complaints about school and her annoyance with other girls and how gross boys could be.

For the most part, Billy seemed to be taking the role of the normal older brother. At least he didn't blast his music so loud when he came to pick Max up.

"So, what exactly are we looking for?" Jonathan called out. They had been walking around for a few hours, looping and backpedaling and pausing. 

It seemed like only Steve and Jane and Billy knew, and none of them appeared to be ready to explain. The sun was high in the sky at that point, and Steve demanded that they all stop to eat lunch, glancing at his watch before whipping off the little backpack he had stuffed with food that morning before leaving. He passed out things to the kids and then let Nancy and Jonathan have their pick. They all sat on various rocks and logs, munching away. Billy stood a little farther away, still smoking and looking. Steve grabbed the bag of food and walked over to the other boy, thinking about how he hadn't eaten any breakfast.

"Hungry?" He asked, holding the bag toward Billy.

The other boy glanced at it as though it were the most uninteresting thing on the planet. "M'fine," he said with a puff of smoke. Steve frowned.

"You didn't eat breakfast," he said.

Billy smiled, though it wasn't sweet. "You don't have to worry about me like you do with your kids," He spat. "I said I'm not hungry, so I'm not hungry."

Steve was floored. All he had tried to do was get Billy to eat something. "How do you manage to do it?" Steve asked. Compared to the Billy he had seen the previous night and that morning, it was almost like Steve had gone back in time, and he flinched away from the memory of Billy beating his face in. 

Billy flicked away what remained of his cigarette. "Do what?"

"Be such a huge asshole," Steve told him. 

Billy hummed, a thinking noise. "I don't know," he replied. "It's never bothered me much. Besides, I don't think you really believe I'm such a big asshole."

"And what makes you say that?"

Billy turned to him. In the sunlight, his yellow hair seemed lined with real flakes of gold. His skin was still perfectly tanned despite the Indiana weather bearing down on him.

With a smirk Billy said, "You kissed me."

Steve's cheeks turned bright red and he hushed Billy, looking over his shoulder at the group, but nobody had even been paying the two any attention. "You can't just announce that shit. Besides, it's not like it's gonna happen again."

At this, Billy raised an eyebrow. "Oh, it's not?"

"I thought you didn't want me to," Steve sighed. "You said I was just using you--"

"Yeah. Maybe you were. It doesn't matter anyway." Billy brushed by Steve, shoulders bumping, the simple touch sending sparks of electricity through both of the boys. "Come on, ladies!" He called to the rest of the party. "We're losing valuable sunshine."

_"Asshole,"_   Steve hissed under his breath. Billy was too confusing.

So they all walked on, jumping at the slightest of sounds and flinching at any shift in wind or light. After another thirty minutes of what seemed like aimless walking, The kids started to complain. "We should've gone after it last night," Dustin said. "Then we wouldn't be walking around like a bunch of dumb asses."

"If it wasn't for that prick you have asa step-brother," Lucas added, "We'd probably have killed the thing."

"Speaking of," Said Max, looking around. "Where is Billy?" 

It was strange that there had been no rebuttal to Lucas' words. The whole group stopped walking and joined Max in her glancing. But Billy was nowhere to be seen. "Billy," Max called out, stepping away from the group slightly.

"Hold it," Steve said to her, pulling her back gently by the arm. "We can't split up."

"Piece of shit probably walked off to take a piss," Jonathan commented. Steve looked at him, and covered the surprised glare with a shrug.

But it was hard to conduct a search without splitting up, and they all ended up ambling through the woods calling out for Billy and holding the various weapons high. Jane walked the slowest, looked the most carefully. She had ran in these woods, hid in them, she knew them well. To her left, she felt a strong pull and she could not keep her eyes from turning that direction. Her feet began to go that way, too, and soon her whole body was moving toward the force of _something._ She barely heard Mike and the others calling to her, didn't feel their hands grabbing, until she pushed through to a small clearing, and there was Billy.

"Hey--" Steve crashed through the underbrush and then stopped dead in his tracks, hair flung over his forehead shining with sweat. He looked at Billy across the way, but Billy had his back turned toward them all. The sun wasn't shining as bright in his hair, clouds had darkened the scene. "Stay back," he tossed over his shoulder as he picked his way toward Billy. The other boy was simply standing, looking up at the sky. 

"Billy," Steve prodded, only a couple feet away. There was no response. Steve stepped closer and reached out with his free hand, placing it on Billy's shoulder. "Hey."

There wasn't any indication that Billy was even aware that Steve was near him. Slowly, Steve turned away from Billy and went back to the group. "He's in, like, a trance or something." 

The report was anticlimactic. The boys started talking at once, asking questions about what to do with his body, if he was on drugs, what his deal was, but Jane remained silent. She wasn't listening to their voices. She was listening to the woods. "Mike," she said, but the boy didn't hear her. She tried to get anybody's attention, but they were all freaking out over Billy's zombie-like behavior. Steve wanted to argue that Billy wasn't a zombie because he didn't try to eat Steve's brains when he got close, but the words never saw the light of day. A Demodog burst into the clearing, charging toward the group. Like Billy was invisible.

_"Shiiiiiiiit,"_   Dustin yelled, making Steve turn and raise the bat just in time to knock the leaping creature back. Jane was able to finish it off, but two more were emerging from the trees. 

"Steve," Nancy said, warily. She aimed the rifle, ready to shoot.

"Why are there so many?" Steve asked aloud. Nobody had the answer. 

The two that had slowly been emerging charged out of the woods, followed by two more behind them. "Oh my god," someone said, but there was no time to say anything else, everyone was fighting off the creatures. 

"Let's go!" Nancy yelled over the roars of the creatures.

Steve glanced in Billy's direction and saw he was still just standing there. "We can't leave him here," he said.

"Why not?" Lucas screeched, diving out of the way of one of the creatures.

"He's my brother!" Max exclaimed, cheeks red and bat bloody.

Through all of the commotion, Billy couldn't hear a thing. When he looked down at his feet, they were half buried in sand, waves washing over them and lulling him in with the tide. His eyelids felt heavy; it had been a long time since he felt the sun warming his skin in the winter and he wanted to lay down in the sand forever. Waves crashed and he stepped further into the water, letting it come up to his shins, right below his knees. The wind was gusty, but everything was tranquil. "Home," he whispered aloud. There wasn't anybody around to hear him. 

_"Come back here,"_ A voice said in his ear. He turned to look and saw his mother.

Normally, tears would have filled his eyes and he would have crashed to the ground, falling into her arms and wailing like a baby, but those were in normal dreams. Billy knew that he was not really in California, and that his mother was not really standing next to him. She looked real, though, and when he reached out to touch her, his hand landed solidly on skin. "Mom."

_"Come back here,"_ she repeated. Billy took in the sight of her. Her face seemed blurry, but her blond hair was longer. She had sparkling earrings dangling through the wild curls and her blue eyes were like lighthouse beams guiding him home. 

"Back to California?" Billy asked.

The visage of his mother nodded. "Don't tell anyone," she added. "Leave Hawkins."

"Hawkins is a bad place," Billy told her. "But--"

"No buts," his mother cut in. "Leave as soon as you can. There's nothing in Hawkins."

Behind his mother, Billy saw a flash of dark brown hair. In the distance, there was a bloody scream and he wanted to jump toward the noise but his mother's grip on his hand was too strong to pull away from. The water was higher now, lapping over his thighs. For months, all Billy wanted was to go back to California. Things were wrong in Indiana, there was no place for him. And really, he knew that his mother was not talking to him, that he was in the dark place where the rest of his memories went, but he wanted to give in for just a second. 

His eyes slipped shut.

The waves quieted, and the warmth of the sun slowly dissipated from his skin. When Billy opened his eyes, he was in a completely dark area with nothing around him. Not even sounds. When he squinted really hard, he could make out the fuzzy image of people with bats and guns, fighting and yelling and running around. If he tried to walk toward them, they always seemed to go farther and farther away. 

Then the noise crashed back to him all at once. 

"Billy!" Max's guttural cry came from a few yards away. 

Billy blinked and saw five of the monsters closing in on his friends. He watched Jane as she dealt with two of them, saw Steve's ex-girlfriend firing at another with a rifle bigger than her frame, saw Max whopping one into the ground with one of Steve's bats-- and then there was Steve. He looked worse for wear, blood streaking down his face mixed with dark chunks of monster guts, but he was still just swinging his bat. For the most part, Steve was the only one left with a monster to struggle with. He nailed it upside the head and it went flying, and then everything quieted down.

Through the silence and ragged breathing, Dustin squeaked out, _"Hell_ yeah, buddy."

But Billy couldn't appraise Steve, his eyes were stuck behind him, on the woods. From the trees sprang the last from the group of monsters, heading right for Steve's big head of hair.

Billy didn't think. He felt his mother's grip loosen from his hand, and he kicked his way out of the water. He pushed through the dark space and came bursting out right in front of Steve, knocking him aside and taking the blunt force of the monster, feeling its claws rip into his flesh before sinking its teeth in. All Billy could do was curse and try to wrestle it off. The thing was small, but it weighed what felt like a ton, and Billy could do little more than thrash around on the ground. 

Something picked it up and threw it away, and Jane was then saying, "That's all."

Someone was dragging Billy out of the center of the clearing, and Billy wanted to say, _"Ouch, watch the fucking rocks,"_ but he could hardly even moan. He blinked through the blood, not totally sure if it was entirely his own, and found Steve's worried eyes gazing at him, tears falling, brown illuminated. 

"Don't you fucking die," Steve told him, pressing in on Billy's wound. It was too big, too deep, and blood poured through the gaps in Steve's fingers until he gave up with a grunt and tore his shirt off to press the cloth down. Someone told him to stop, that it was too late, but Steve kept pressing and crying and begging Billy to live, goddammit. "If you die that'll be the worst thing you've ever done, asshole," he hissed, leaning close enough to whisper it into Billy's ear.

Billy thought that any moment would be great for his magic powers to kick in, but things seemed to be taking a while. He heard Steve sob and shriek, "Do something!"

Nancy could only watch as her ex-boyfriend tried desperately to save the boy that had nearly killed him just over a month ago. She heard the pain in his wails and wondered if anyone else could hear the heartbreak. She understood then that Steve hadn't changed just because of her, he had changed because of the impact of Billy. And now Billy was laying on the forest floor, bleeding out. 

Underneath Steve's hands, Billy started to cough and tried to sit up. His lungs felt like they were on fire and he wanted water. A sharp pain shot through his torso as his skin reattached itself from where the Dog had ripped it apart. Steve was pressing down on his shoulders, ordering him not to move. "Fuck off," Billy grunted, pulling himself completely upright. Steve sat back on his heels, blinking and sniffling. 

"Shit, hold the thing to the--"

Steve tried to direct him, but Billy shrugged Steve's ruined shirt away, and there wasn't much left to cover his torso. Billy's powers couldn't sew new clothes to replace what was torn away by the Dog. His head pounded, and he felt a fresh trickle of blood coming from his nose. He blinked hard, trying to adjust to the heat of everyone's shocked gazes. Steve shot forward, his cold hand smacking into Billy's side, pressing in, feeling. He was still crying and Billy had to look away because in that moment Steve was the sun.

_"What the--?"_

"My head hurts," Billy mumbled. The world was going dark around the edges. He tried getting to his feet, but they wouldn't move. He began falling backwards, but Steve shifted to catch his head. Before he passed out, he felt hands all over him, pulling and skidding and questioning.

 

\-------------

 

Not for the first time since moving to Hawkins, Billy was dreaming of Steve Harrington. There had been the typical teenage fever dreams; Steve naked in the school showers, vague flashes of Steve's hands on Billy, the shadow of his tongue ghosting over Billy's skin. But this dream, Steve was looking at Billy from behind a glass wall, and Billy was banging on the glass and calling to him but Steve wouldn't respond. He grew more distant, surrounded by more white. Billy opened his mouth to tell Steve to run, please, please run, but a hand shot out from the blinding white and wrapped around Steve's neck. Steve wouldn't fight back, he simply stared at Billy through the glass with trusting eyes and a soft smile with lips slowly turning blue. 

A deep voice of scratching gravel said, "Heal him, Billy."

"I can't get to him!" Billy screeched, banging wildly at the glass, fist bouncing back comically from the reinforced pane. 

"Heal him," he was commanded again, and a gun was raised to Steve's head. The last thing Billy saw before shooting awake was the red of Steve's bulging eyes, unblinking, still smiling. The name died on Billy's lips when he looked around and saw that he was in a bedroom, not a white hospital. But whose bedroom was he in?

Breathing hard, he kicked the blankets off. Billy saw that the shirt he was wearing was not his own. His feet touched the ground and it was soft carpet, not the cold wooden floors he was used to. He jumped when Steve said, "You're awake."

The other boy was standing in the doorway, eyes tired and body tense. 

"I'm awake," Billy echoed his affirmation. "What time is it? How'd you get me in your bed, Harrington?"

Steve frowned. "It's a little after midnight. Don't worry, Max is back at your place. Jane is spending the night there."

Billy bolted to his feet, but the sudden movement made his head spin and he plopped back down on Steve's soft mattress. "She shouldn't be there..." he began to say, but the sentence lacked strength. 

"Why not?" Steve asked.

Billy shook his head. Neal never touched Max. Jane would be fine. "Okay. But seriously, why am I in your bed?"

"You really don't remember?" Steve shuffled awkwardly under the arch, but Billy felt too awkward to invite Steve into his own room. If he wanted to move, he would. Seeing Billy's sincere confusion, Steve told him what had happened. It came back to Billy, and he felt a wave of shame wash over him. As usual, he grabbed at the edge of the blanket behind him and flung himself down and under it, hiding away. It was childish, really, to think that the blanket could separate him from the rest of the world and the problems that came with it, but at least Steve would be confused enough to give Billy a few seconds of peace.

But Steve was not Susan or Max, and quickly ripped the blanket away so that Billy could not hide. "What are you doing?" Steve demanded. "Billy, I thought you were going to _die."_

"You saw what happened," Billy shrugged, relying instead on the pillow to sufficiently bury his face in. Steve was half tempted to pull him off of the bed and wrestle him to the ground, force his eyes to stay focused, but he didn't want to cause so much trouble with the other boy. Billy took his time, but eventually he spoke. "I didn't want you to know about it. I didn't want anybody knowing." He added the last part so that Steve wouldn't feel too special.

The bed jostled and Steve's hand apparently felt entitled to tracing around the sliver of exposed skin between Billy's shirt (that was really Steve's) and his jeans. "You saw Jane. You knew we've seen that stuff before."

Billy's skin danced around the fire of fingertips. "It's different." He turned slightly, away from Steve's touch.

Steve sighed hard. "What's your problem?" He asked. Billy hadn't expected a harsh snap like that. He was so surprised that he turned around to look at Steve, but that was a mistake, because the soft lighting in his room made his face look softer and his eyes warmer and Billy's stomach did a weird flip.

"Why do you care so much?"

"You know why," Steve said. 

"Actually," Billy countered. "I don't."

"Billy," Steve groaned. Then he shot forward and kissed Billy. It was a little awkward, and the position hurt Billy's neck from straining but he wasn't complaining. When Steve pulled back he was whispering, "I meant it when I said that I wasn't playing any games. Really. Why are you fighting that so hard?"

"There's bigger things to worry about, Harrington." Billy tried. He jerked up, pulling away from Steve's touch. The fire had spread from his hip to his lips, and Billy didn't have the slightest idea how to extinguish it. "Look," he jerked his arm toward Steve, held it wrist-up. "Elbow."

Steve squinted at Billy's skin, trying to see whatever it was that was bugging Billy so much. "I don't see anything," he told him. 

"It's kinda hard to see," Billy explained, grabbing Steve's hand and lifting it to his arm. Steve felt Billy's warm, smooth skin. He wanted to ask what he was supposed to be feeling, when his fingers grazed over a raised bump on Billy's arm, rough, almost like a callous. Surprised, Steve pulled Billy's arm closer to his face, to examine it under better light. 

It was a scar. A burn. A raised circle of skin, red and pink, distorted black ink from a tattoo hidden under the injury. "What happened?" Steve asked. He swallowed hard, thinking about some of things he had heard Max say.

"Sometimes I see things," Billy began. "Like memories. Only they feel like dreams, too."

"You did this to yourself?" Steve wanted to know, not sure which answer would hurt him more. Billy could run away from his father, but he couldn't run away from himself.

Billy answered, "No. It was my dad, when I was maybe five or six. Ouch," Billy winced when Steve's grip tightened a little too much. 

"Why would he?"

"I think that the things that I remember are things he hated." Billy paused, gathered his thoughts so that they wouldn't twist his tongue up. "When I was little, really little, something happened. It's hard to explain. People took me, and sometimes I hear their voices begging me to save everyone. They molded me into _something,_ and I had forgotten about it for so long. Until I came here."

Steve softened his grip, traced circles around Billy's skin again. It gave Billy enough courage to continue talking.

"I've done this before," he admitted. "In California."

"Thought you said you couldn't remember?" Steve questioned.

"It comes and goes," Billy shrugged. He liked following Steve's fingers on his skin. Their knees were touching. "But I remember that boy. The one I told you about at that party."

Steve scoffed. "That feels like years ago."

"Yeah." Billy grabbed Steve's hand, held it in his own. Steve had never seen the boy look so small and soft. His heart lurched. "Anyways, when I was a little older and my mom had gotten me back, there was a tattoo on my arm. A number. I had been branded. My dad didn't like it, so he burned it away with his cigarette. I guess I just got used to avoiding looking at it hat I really forgot it was there."

Steve was silent for a long time. He wanted to reach out to Billy, hold him and kiss him, but he felt like he couldn't, not yet. "You should talk with Jane," he finally told Billy. "I think your story is almost exactly like hers. Maybe she could help."

Billy shook his head. "I don't know." He heard his mother whisper, _go back to California._ "I'm leaving soon."

Steve pulled his hand out of Billy's, and the action stung deep. "What?"

"M'going away. For a while."

_"Where?"_

In the light, Steve's eyes were wide and shining. Billy blinked. "I can't tell you."

"Billy--"

"Really, Steve. I can't." His voice broke on the last half of the sentence. He cleared his throat and said, "I'm very tired."

A tear slipped down Steve's cheek, illuminated and burning in the faint glow. 

"I didn't want to tell you," Billy added. "I didn't want you to know about a lot of things. But with you, it just all comes out, Harrington. I remember more when I'm with you, the dreams are more vivid and sometimes I feel like I'm just _falling--"_   Pause. "And besides, I'm no good for you. Gotta go before I hurt you."

"Fuck you," Steve whispered. "That's bullshit." The words echoed something deep inside of him, feelings of rage and heartbreak and confusion. 

"Bullshit?" Billy repeated.

"Yeah. You don't get to tell me how I feel." Steve straightened up, clenched his jaw. "I've been with a lot of girls. I've been in love. I know what romantic feelings are, and even though I've never felt that way with a boy there's something about you that just makes me want to--" Steve couldn't find the right words.

"M'gonna burn you up," Billy tried to warn him. "Don't you get it? I'm a freak, I-- I can do these things. Please don't cry, Harrington."

"I'm not crying because of you," Steve insisted. "I'm crying _for_ you." He sniffled. "I'm crying because of the father you have, and I'm crying because you just brought yourself back from the dead and you think that makes you a freak. Don't you know how bad ass that is?"

Billy felt very awake, and decided it was time to go. "Don't make this harder than it is," he muttered, moving to get out of the bed.

"Billy," Steve called, not caring about noise anymore. The pain in his voice was enough to stop Billy where he stood, Half-out of his borrowed coat. "Please. Be selfish, just this once."

Something shifted in Billy. He spun around, grabbed Steve by the collar of his shirt, and kissed him roughly. There was something in the kiss that made Billy's knees buckle and his lungs nearly collapse. He wanted to continue falling, fall into bed with Steve and his warmth and his care, but then Billy snapped away, miles of distance between them though their foreheads were resting together. "I want to stay," he told Steve.

"Then stay." Steve reached around Billy's neck, locked his arms in place and surged up, body rolling against Billy's. A soft whimper escaped Billy's throat that Steve moved to suck on, and in an instant he was straddling Steve's hips, letting his shirt be pushed up and over his head. Steve marveled up at the chiseled stomach and flat chest and strong arms that had hurt him and jostled him and teased him for so long. He ran his hands over Billy's chest, noting the difference between his and girls', obvious yet still so shocking. Billy had him pinned on the bed, kissing him and grinding down on him, and it was a weird sensation for Steve but he reveled in it nonetheless. 

He didn't know how far Billy was planning to go with things until Steve felt a hand at the hem of his sweatpants, cautiously moving, waiting for permission. Steve bucked up into Billy's hand and his head swirled. Billy's hands were firm as they cupped him and Steve wondered at how, just a month ago, they had ripped him apart and nearly killed him. The Billy that was kissing him now, though, was far different from the Billy then. The truth was, Hawkins had made Billy forget, but the pull to California was so strong that Billy could only repent. He could try to be the best older brother, the perfect son, the caring boyfriend, but he knew that under all of that he would long for something else. 

But he unzipped his pants. "It's been a while," he whispered to Steve. 

"Thought you laid girls all the time," Steve teased.

"That's different," Billy told him. Steve heard him hiss, his jeans flying off somewhere. It was hard to tell in the dark, but one of Billy's arms was behind himself, and Steve got the general idea. It was all suddenly very real. "Lube?" Billy asked, and Steve's throat was too dry to answer so he reached into the nightstand draw next to him and pulled out the small bottle, nearly empty. Billy snatched it, hands working over Steve and himself and then he was sinking down, down, down. 

"Shit," Steve groaned. It was different than being with any girl before. It was tighter, hotter, raw and he nearly sobbed at the feeling. Billy's face was twisted tight and Steve half-wondered if he was enjoying it at all. He moved slowly at first, and Steve held back as best as he could from thrusting. He had never felt so connected to the other person before, not even when he thought that Nancy's body was part of his own and their pleasures were equal and supported by the others'. 

After years, Billy muttered, "Move, Harrington." He had dreamed of that moment for months, weeks of keeping boners at bay during gym showers and endless mornings of cleaning the sheets after a particularly intense dream, none of it came close to what he felt then. 

At some point, Billy stopped kissing Steve and straightened up, threw his head back and bounced wildly up and down, up and down, rolling his hips and stroking his dick. It wasn't until Steve came, a certain swivel sending him overboard, that he thought to help Billy along a little. He had never touched a dick other than his own, but the motions were pretty much identical. Billy followed not long after, riding Steve's oversensitive cock until it was almost hard again. 

It was lighter outside. Crickets chirped and the two boys panted into each other's mouths. Billy pulled off of Steve with a grunt and a sigh, and took the liberty of laying next to him. Fingers immediately started combing through Billy's hair and it was almost enough to quiet the pull in his chest. Almost. 

He laid with Steve until Steve fell asleep, the sun slowly pushing its way through the heavy darkness of the night. Billy couldn't ignore it anymore. He remembered everything, from the dying cat to his dying mother, everything that had been blocked out or marred in his memories. 

He untangled Steve's limbs from his own meticulously, aware of how easy it would be to wake him up and ruin everything. He was just taking Steve's advice and being selfish, he told himself. He eventually got out of the bed, having to pause once when Steve grumbled something aloud and wait for him to fall back into his deep sleep. Billy got dressed in the half-darkness of Steve's room, pulling on Steve's white shirt and Steve's light coat. 

Outside, the wind was strong, blowing West. Billy walked against it all the way to his house, where he wrote a short note to Max and slid it under her bedroom door before filling a small duffel bag with clothes and all the cash he had been saving up to run away with-- crumpled bills won from bets and bullying-- and laced up his heavy boots.

His car door slammed loudly in the quiet of the still neighborhood. He threw the car in reverse, then started heading West. 


	7. Chapter 7

Steve's bed was warmed by a pool of sunlight spilling through his window. He felt sated, content, and happily swam in and out of sleep for plenty of extra hours that morning. It was only when he shifted; reaching, searching for the other presence of warmth in bed with him, that he noticed something was missing. 

Billy wasn't in the bed. 

Steve calmed himself. Billy had probably gone to the bathroom, or the kitchen, or anywhere else for whatever other task he might have, but he would come back to Steve, surely. 

"Steeeeeeeeve," the wailing voice of Dustin groaned through the house. 

Blinking away sleep and a building sense of doubt, Steve got out of bed. As he made his way to the living room, he checked the bathroom. No sign of Billy. His heart beat a little faster. 

Dustin was helping himself in the kitchen. There was trash littering the counter as he cooked some concoction involving eggs and various spices. Steve knew better than to ask.

"I thought you went home with Wheeler last night?"

"I did," Dustin said as he squirted an unhealthy amount of ketchup onto a plate. "Then I was worried so I came back. I didn't want to wake you up but then Max called just now and she sounded pretty freaked out and--"

"Breathe, Dustin," Steve cut in. If he didn't interfere, he knew the kid could go on forever. "What did Max call about?"

Dustin shrugged. "Dunno. She said she needed to talk to you."

"Well, okay," Steve sighed and sank onto one of the wooden kitchen chairs, trying not to breathe in the scents of Dustin's cooking too much. He leaned his head into his hands, fingers pressing into his temples as he tried to think. Had he felt Billy leave at some point? After everything, Steve was pretty knocked out. He couldn't even remember any dreams. For once he hadn't been plagued by any monsters in the night, but the reality he woke up to was turning out to be just as painful. 

A chair scraped back and Dustin slid next to Steve, mountain of eggs and ketchup and toast piled on his plate, along with some other colors that Steve couldn't identify. "Want some?" Dustin offered. Steve shook his head, looked away before his complexion could turn too green.

The question was pushing on the tip of his tongue. Surely Max would have mentioned something about Billy if he had gone home, maybe she had let the detail slip in passing. Steve took a breath to bring it up to Dustin-- but he was cut off by a rapid pounding on the door.

Max stood on the threshold, wild eyes red and red hair blown wild around her face. "Max, are you okay?" Steve asked, pulling her inside and locking the door behind them. He automatically scanned her over, but couldn't find any bruises or blood.

"Steve, you have to look at this." Max was shaking along with her voice as she thrust out a crumpled piece of paper in his direction. Steve didn't immediately move to take it, and with an exasperated sigh Max grabbed his hand and forced his fist open so she could shove the paper there.

Before he opened it, Steve tried to calm his spinning mind. "It's Billy, isn't it."

There was no question. Neither affirming nor denying but not making any attempts to conceal the truth, Max just wiped her nose on her sleeve. Steve held in his comment to use a tissue instead. 

Steve finally managed to look at the paper in his hand. He shook all over as he opened it. It was small, probably only a half piece of scrap that had snatched up. Steve had never gotten a chance to really see the other boy's handwriting. There were no shared essays like there had been between Steve and Nancy, no passed notes, no scrawled messages of lust and love. Just a few hours between them, really, and Steve felt polluted.

_I'll be back soon, Max. Tell Harrington I'm sorry. Sorry to you too. I had to go home._

"California," Max announced. "That's what he means by home. He could never let it go."

Steve was transfixed by the way Billy wrote his name, looped _t_ among the other rigidly scratched letters. Hot tears stung Steve's eyes, and he had to give the note back to Max before he could wet the paper. "Why'd he go now?"

"I don't know," Max answered. "He's been acting weird for weeks now. Maybe it's all been building up to this."

"No," Steve whispered. He pressed the heels of his palms hard into his eyes to try and keep the tears in. "We have to go after him then."

"Have you ever been outside of Hawkins?" Max asked. She didn't mean it in a bad way, but Steve knew that she was dubious of his abilities to track down Billy in a monster like Cali. 

Steve relented. "No. But I have to try."

Dustin had crept up from his spot at the table, looking over Max's shoulder at the note. "He said he'd come back," Dustin pointed out.

Max flinched, unaware that the boy had gotten so close. "That was just him being nice. He's a liar." There was a bitterness in Max's words that stung even Steve. If Billy could lie about that, there was no end to what Billy could manipulate and fabricate. Steve almost felt like Billy's grand acts were laudable; he had dragged along so many people, crafted so many stories. He must have been a talented actor. How could he keep track of it all?

Swallowing down his anger, Steve suggested, "Maybe he didn't go all the way to California. Maybe he's really in trouble."

"Then why would he leave a note?" Max asked.

Steve thought about monsters and dark, corrupting forces. "I don't know. But we can't just give up on him."

"He gave up on us easily enough." Dustin was making his way back to his breakfast. Max was drying her eyes. Billy was being tucked away in their memories, behind all of the other useless information to collect dust. It wasn't so effortless for Steve. There was an ache in his chest, something similar to the _bullshit_ Nancy had killed him with.

He let Max go to the table with Dustin, let them call the others to catch them up. The whole time he sat on his couch, looking out at the pool. More voices entered his house, shouting and fighting over food and rules and carrying on. Steve couldn't bring himself to control them like he usually would. 

Why couldn't he get one person to stay?

Weight dipped next to him on the couch. It was Jane. He figured the whole group would come, but he and the young girl hadn't talked much. When they did, it was usually vicariously through Mike. "You okay?" She asked. She was so quiet Steve almost didn't notice that she had spoken, save for her lips moving underneath worried eyes.

"I've been better, kid," Steve sighed. He thought that he was probably being melodramatic, but couldn't bring himself to stop. He didn't have the energy for anything.

"I can help," Jane said. 

"With what?"

She grabbed Steve's hand, both of her tiny hands wrapping around Steve's one palm, warming his surprisingly frigid fingers. "California."

Steve straightened up. "Did Max tell you?"

Jane shook her head. "I saw him," She told Steve. "In the dark. He's lost."

The girl spoke in what seemed like riddles, but Steve knew that her powers extended beyond anything that he would ever be able to understand. So he nodded. "What should we do?"

"Go," Jane said. "Go to California." 

"What are you talking about?" Mike asked. "We can't just go to California. What about school?"

"He's right," Steve sighed. "Winter Break is over. The new semester is here. I can't pull you guys out of your education--"

"Me, I'll go," Jane insisted. "I don't have school to miss."

Steve glanced at Mike, who had wide eyes. "Not fair," he whined. 

"I have to clear it with Hopper--"

"Let's go." Jane stood up from the couch and tried to pull Steve up by his hand, but he felt stuck to the cushion. 

"Hold up," he started. "We can't just up and go. We need a plan."

"Plan," Jane repeated. "Plan is to find Billy. In California."

"Well, yeah, but, we need to think out the details."

"Be as fast as we can. Find him in the dark place."

Steve realized that he didn't know half of the things she was talking about, so he simply nodded. "Okay. I'll take you home so you can pack some stuff. I'll talk to Hopper."

"Guys!" Mike groaned. Dustin's head popped in from the kitchen, where he had been trying to convince Max and Lucas to eat one of his meals. 

"What's goin' on?" He asked.

Before Steve could handle the situation, Mike spun around and exclaimed, "They want to run after Billy all the way to California!"

"California?" Max asked, cutting in as well. "I told you, you won't be able to find him."

"I can't," Steve agreed. "But Jane said she could help."

All eyes were on Jane, then. 

"Then I'm going, too." Max stood up tall.

"No, you can't miss school."

"You are!" She argued. 

"It doesn't matter," Steve countered. "I'm all set to graduate. I can miss a few extra days."

"What if it takes longer to find him?" Mike asked.

"All the more reason for you guys to stay here." Steve shut the argument down with his stern voice. "You guys have to stay here with Nancy and Johnathan. Besides, I still have to talk to Hopper. So don't get your hopes up," he tossed to Jane, who was bouncing on the tips of her toes with energy. 

It was decided that the kids would all go to the Wheeler house. Steve and Jane would go to Hopper's cabin and wait for him to come home from work, and then explain the situation. Steve drove slowly, aware of all of the possibilities that could come from the upcoming days. He could find Billy, or he could not find Billy. Maybe Billy didn't want to be found. Maybe he was dead. He collected himself, turned up the radio. Jane sat calmly in the passenger seat, face revealing nothing of her thoughts.

There was nothing in the cabin. Of course, there was a TV and a radio, but nothing to really distract Steve. He sat on the worn yellowish couch and tried to get some sleep, but every time he closed his eyes he saw Billy's, dark and inviting. He saw Billy kissing him. He saw Billy laughing. He saw Billy. Steve didn't know what was wrong with him.  
The trip would take almost two days. Hopper was hesitant, saying that Jane would have a lot of work to catch up on, but when he saw the desperate look in their eyes, he relented. Hopper was familiar with the monsters of the world, and he knew that as long as there was no Upside Down to contend with, then his Jane would be fine. She'd just help track down a missing friend (though he couldn't remember the Hargrove brother ever being a friend before). While Jane packed a small bag, Hopper pulled Steve aside and asked, "Is there anything you're not telling me, Harrington?"

Fear clutched at Steve's throat. He imagined telling a police officer that he was in love (or at least _involved)_ with Billy. He knew there would be some sort of consequence, or believed that so thoroughly that he could only clear the fear from his throat and say, "I've told you everything. I just-- I can't find him by myself."

Hopper recognized the crack in Steve's voice as something he had known well himself. No matter how much Steve wanted to conceal it, there was a glimmer in his eyes and a certain level of desperation that told Hopper all of his secrets. Before Hopper could say anything in return, Jane whizzed by them, running to shove her suitcase in Steve's car before running back inside for a jacket to fend off the chilly air. "Hey," Hopper stopped her with a hand on her shoulder before she could get too far away. He pulled her in for a hard hug, the kind that embarrassed daughters around their friends but parents couldn't help but take. "Take care of her," He said to Steve. "No fighting, just finding that kid."

"Yes sir," Steve nodded. 

Jane was asleep after a few hours. Steve turned down the radio and rolled down the window. He didn't want to stop unless he absolutely had to, and the harsh wind blowing in his face kept him awake for the extensive ride. He let Jane sleep. He knew the kind of struggle they'd have in the next few days. Even without the Upside Down and Demodogs, Billy could be one hell of a pain in the ass.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

It was warm. The sand scraped at the souls of his feet that had so quickly become adjusted to the rubber protection of his boots, and he curled his toes to grab more grains. Though it was completely dark outside with noises all around, Billy felt completely safe. He was sitting in the water, only in underwear, letting the tide go in and out, brushing over his skin. His eyelids drooped heavily. He should go back to the ratty motel room, but the water seemed to keep him thinking. Even though he had gone to where his heart needed him to, he still felt wary. What was he missing?

Behind him, Billy heard the rumble of a car pulling along the sand. It was odd for the hour, so instinctively he flinched and turned to the lights. Before he could collect himself, figures were jumping out of what was a large van and not merely a beach-patrol buggy. They sprinted at Billy, at least seven people, possibly more. The darkness made it hard to specify. They dragged Billy to his feet, and when he fell into dead weight they dragged him through the scraping sand.

Billy tried his hardest to fight back, but there were too many hands holding him back. He tried to yell, but his muffled sounds were wasted on the vacant beach. He saw a trunk jolt open, the felt space cramping his muscles even before he landed atop it. Then the trunk closed and he was alone, breathing hard against the rag tied around his mouth. The adrenaline kicked him out of the fog of whatever had taken over his mind. Where was he? Where was Steve? Max? The last he could remember was Steve's soft skin, his quiet whisper as they--

And then Billy had needed to go.

He was in California.

He needed to get away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cant keep track of anything and sometimes its just hard to get stuff done im sorry (i had high hopes for this story but i don't think im writing it very well)


	8. Chapter 8

There was something about the lines of the state maps that made Steve's head pound and his eyes get blurry. Maybe it was the fact that he really had never left Hawkins, save for the very edge of town for the oddest parties, but even then he knew every street and corner. Driving to California meant stopping in the middle of every new state to get a map, because nobody seemed to sell them regionally, Jane covered by miles of unfolded paper as she helped navigate Steve. 

"Can't you just tell me where to go with your mind?" Steve grumbled, stopping for the fourth time in Utah. 

"California," Jane quipped, not very helpful. 

"Thanks." Steve got out of the car and let it fill up with gas while he made his way into the station to pay. He also made sure to grab snacks, because he knew that ten minutes from now, Jane would be complaining about how hungry she was even though Steve had asked before getting on the road again if she wanted anything and she said no. 

The cashier was a dull-eyed teenager, a few years younger than Steve. She scanned the items slowly, speaking only to ask if Steve wanted a bag. Then she slowly began stuffing everything into the plastic, further commercializing Steve's desperate journey. When he finally made it back to the car, jamming the gas nozzle back into place, Jane began mumbling about lunch and Steve tossed the plastic bag her way so she could take her pick of junk food.

That had been the cycle. Now Steve's palms sweat with the idea that they only had to get through Nevada (where road signs finally started popping up to guide him, so he didn't have to stop) and then he'd be in California. Another day of driving and this eternity of a road trip would be over. 

Jane fiddled with the radio, fingers covered in crumbs from her chips but Steve didn't care. He cranked down the window; it was so much warmer here than Indiana. 

Before, he had checked into cheap hotels so that Jane didn't have to sleep curled up in the back of the car forever. It had been a thirty hour drive stretched into three days, and now Steve was ready for it to end. 

Overhanging signs told him which lanes to stay in, where to merge, what exits to take, and before he knew it, he crossed the state line and was in California. Unceremoniously, and then it truly hit him that he had driven all this way without the slightest idea of how to actually find Billy. Five minutes into the state, Jane jerked awake and screamed, "Stop!" Steve nearly swerved into the car next to him from surprise.

"What's wrong?" He asked. 

"Ocean," Jane panted, face pressing against the window, eyes searching. 

"We just entered the state," Steve sighed. "We have to get to the coast."

But Jane was adamant. "Ocean," she repeated. "Ocean, ocean."

"I know," Steve groaned, and sped up to sixty miles an hour in a forty zone. 

When Steve did find tourist signs guiding him to a beach, Jane barely waited for the car to stop before hopping out and running down toward the water. Sand kicked up under her sneakers and Steve could only watch as she didn't even hesitate to dive into the current without even taking them off. Brain lagging from the long drive, it took a second for Steve to kick into gear. After all, it was January, the water had to be freezing. He got out and jogged as fast as his cramped legs would let him down to the shore, toeing off his shoes and calling after Jane. Bracing himself, he let the surf wash over him, expecting icy needles. But it wasn't bad. Not warm, but not ice. 

Relieved, he waded in a little further, not minding his jeans getting soaked at the cuffs. "Jane!" He yelled, voice scratchy and battling against the crash of waves around him. If he lost her to the ocean, he wouldn't even bother going home, because Hopper would murder Steve himself. 

Finally, his eyes landed on the small, half-flooded form of Jane floating on her back, rocking up and down with the roll of waves but not disturbed by the water splashing over her face. He pushed his way over to where she had drifted, fighting the current, and saw that her eyes were closed, and her mouth slightly agape, despite the salty water that threatened to choke her. 

"Jane," he said. There was no time for swimming in the ocean, they hadn't come all this way to enjoy a beach vacation. 

Suddenly, her mouth started moving and her hands shook, rippling against the choppy water. All at once, she gasped and shot up, finding footing in the shallow end. "What's wrong?" Steve asked.

"Billy," Jane panted. "Billy is in the Bad Place."

Jane did not want to get back in the car to drive. She started walking, and Steve had to hurry to snatch up his shoes and follow her. She was dripping wet, and didn't seem to mind. California might have been warmer than Indiana, but it definitely wasn't summer and Steve worried about her catching a cold. He at least forced her to change into dry clothes from her suitcase before they continued on. Then Jane started walking like she had grown up here and knew every part of the state. She turned easily around corners, eyes distant and feet fast. 

"You know where he is?" Steve finally asked at some point. Wandering around the state gave his brain plenty of time to run away with worry, and he hated the silence.

Jane just nodded, and Steve was resigned to worrying. 

What Steve didn't know was that Jane was simply ready to march right up to the Sacramento lab. It was different than the one she grew up with in Indiana, and she was not afraid of the cowardly doctors that stole babies; she destroyed the Mind Flayer, rescuing a friend would be a piece of cake compared to that. There was a lot of sand everywhere, like you could never escape the beach no matter where you went. Steve felt dry, like the whole State was missing water despite being right next to a huge ocean. His eyes ached from squinting against the bright sun; he had left his sunglasses in the car after chasing after Jane.

He was about to ask if they were ever going to get where they were supposed to go, but suddenly Jane stopped, and started spinning around, searching all around them. "Bad People," she mumbled. 

Steve felt something sharp whack into his neck, like a bee sting, and he blinked, hand going to the spot. There was something hard on his neck, not like a bee, and suddenly his eyes were very heavy. When he tried to find Jane, she was on the ground. Steve decided he should lay down with her too, and went unconscious before his knees hit the dirt.

\----------------

One-hundred and forty-five. That was how many tiles were in Billy's room. He counted them, just like he had as a child. They were spotless, and Billy took to making a mess of his food just to make the tiles less white, less harsh, less familiar. They wanted him to demonstrate his powers, but he refused. "Don't know what you're talkin' about," he shrugged when one of the doctors asked to see his number. Then they restrained him, forced his arm over and exposed, and saw the cigarette scar marring his label.

"Why haven't you healed this?" A doctor asked. He had gray hair that was surprisingly full, and Billy recoiled from his touch. 

He simply shrugged and said, "Don't know what you're talkin' about."

They then progressed to hurting Billy, to try and get him to heal himself. They brought in guys to fight, but Billy just reveled in it, letting fists that he could easily destroy crash into him and mark him, and then refused to do anything to make himself better. He ended up bruised, beaten, scratched, bloody, but he still refused to use his abilities. The doctors threatened to get his friends, his family, and Billy only smirked, knowing that everyone was states away and safe. 

Until they weren't anymore.

There was one doctor that Billy hated seeing more than any of the other ones. He was short, had gotten fat, and reminded Billy of a childhood that he could never remember. "Father," he spit as the man entered his room one day. They kept him unbound, knowing that he wouldn't attack unless provoked. 

The doctor smiled. "How are you today, Four?" 

They liked to call Billy by his number, erasing any amount of person he could've been. Billy didn't mind. "Been better," he said. "You guys got any pain killers?"

"No," the doctor said. "You can make your pain go away, though."

Billy just hummed. 

After a pause where the man just stared at Billy, he took a breath and said, "Well." Then he walked out of the room and locked the door behind him, and Billy could see him through the glass on the other side, an observation room where men in white coats liked to stand around and watch Billy fight, writing things down and whispering to each other. 

Then the doctor, the man that Billy called Father, turned and said something that Billy couldn't hear. The glass was sound-proof. Bullet-proof. Another door opened and two bodies were wheeled in on metal slabs like operation tables, both restrained by hands and feet. Billy's heart stopped for a second. He got up from his bed and walked toward the glass to get a clearer look. Sure enough, there on the tables were Steve and Jane, and they looked unharmed so far.

"You won't heal yourself," the doctor said into a microphone that broadcast into Billy's room. "But I wonder if you'll help your friends? After all, they came all this way just to save you."

Billy's eyes were stuck on Steve, who was the only one of the two awake. His eyes fluttered and tried hard to focus, and eventually found Billy through the glass. His muscles strained when he tried to sit up, held back by the metal cuffs. His mouth moved, forming around Billy's name. 

"Don't fucking touch them!" Billy yelled, knowing that the doctor could hear him regardless of whether or not he had a microphone. "I'll fucking kill you!" He pounded on the glass, though it did little more than vibrate under his fists. 

The door in the other room opened, and men wearing masks came in, wielding various weapons. Slowly, the man called Father asked, "Are you going to heal yourself, Billy?"

"Fuck you," Billy spit. 

"Okay."

The man nodded, and the ones wearing masks approached Steve. They avoided Jane, who was still unconscious. Billy's vision went white when one man stabbed Steve in the thigh, digging deep. He left the blade in, stemming the blood flow. Steve's mouth opened and for a second Billy couldn't hear his scream, only see it in the way his veins bulged and his skin flushed. But then Father turned on the microphone and Billy was drowned by Steve's agonizing scream. The man nodded again, and another person wearing a mask plunged another knife higher up, into Steve's shoulder, right below the collarbone. 

Mind racing, Billy felt like he couldn't breathe. "I'll heal him," he panted, "I'll do it, fuck, please, I'll do it--"

The door to his room opened and he dashed out, shoving the masked men aside and hands finding Steve. "I'm sorry, Billy," he cried.

Billy shook his head. "The fuck are you doing here?" 

Really, they were both stalling. As long as Steve hung on, and Billy didn't use his powers, there was no reason for the doctors to split them up. Father, however, caught on to this through their reunion. He stepped forward and gripped the knife plunged in Steve's thigh, pulling it sharply. Blood squirted from the wound, almost surely having punctured the artery. Billy's hands immediately went to put pressure on the wound, not healing, not yet. As soon as he healed Steve, he would be taken away.

"He'll die, Four," Father hissed. "You'd let him die? Are you that stubborn?"

Finally, Billy relented. He'd rather live his whole life without seeing Steve again, knowing he was safe and alive somewhere, than have him die in his hands. "Okay," Billy conceded. "I'll do it. One condition." The doctor raised an eyebrow. "You let them go home, and I'll cooperate forever."

Father smiled.

"You've got yourself a deal."

Billy nodded, and let his energy go. He stitched Steve back together, moved to his shoulder and pulled the knife out, carefully as possible, and put everything in its place. Steve's cheeks were pale, breathing hard, eyes watering. "I'm sorry," Billy whispered next to his ear before straightening up to reveal his work. 

"Marvelous," Father said. Then he blinked. "This friend can go home," and he turned to Jane. "But I'm afraid we have a new resident here. Eleven, her mark says. She'll remain to be evaluated."

"No," Steve groaned, though he still felt weak from the roller coaster his body was just thrown on. "No, she's just a kid--"

Through the arguing, Jane listened. She knew not to open her eyes and reveal that she was awake. But through fluttering lashes, she managed to steal a view of the room she was captured in. She saw Billy tearfully leaning over Steve. And she understood all of the unrest she had sensed before. She thought he had to go home, to where his energy belonged, but he had already been home in Hawkins, with Steve. His hesitance and refusal to use his abilities gave the Demodogs pools to feed off of. 

The men in masks started to approach again, to separate them all. Jane was done pretending. 

Her eyes flashed open, and the man that Billy had been forced to call Father was thrown back, crashing into the bullet-proof glass hard enough to crack it. The masked men paused, but Jane didn't spare them. She flung them easily out of the room, slamming the door shut after them. Billy and Steve stared at her in shock and awe, and she easily tore her metal bonds apart, freeing her limbs. Then she focused on Steve, and he was freed too. Instantly, he shot up and grabbed Billy in the tightest hug he could manage.

"Asshole," he whispered, but he didn't mean it through the tears he was fighting off. 

Suddenly, the room was washed in red light, and an alarm was going off.

"Shit," Billy groaned. "What do we do?" He felt a little foolish looking to the thirteen-year-old for help, but there was little else to do. 

"Home," she said. "Use your powers!"

Billy was confused by this, but didn't have time before the door started rattling, people trying to get in. 

Jane's mouth pressed into a hard line while she thought. "Protect," she said. "Protect us."

Billy, fueled by his desire to escape, thought that yes, she was right. The best way to heal was to protect, and he grabbed both of their hands as the door burst open and men with guns took position. Without much of a pause, they started firing their guns. Billy held tight to his friends and imagined the bullets hurting them, imagined fixing them, and when he opened his eyes, the guards were hurrying to reload their guns and shoot more, because the bullets hadn't touched them.

Pride flared in Billy's chest. He could protect. Keeping their hands together, he started advancing forward, and the guards crept back. It was clear that whatever Billy was doing was a shield of sorts, and the guards shit their pants trying to scramble away from Jane's raised hand. Between her and Billy, getting to the exit was easy. Steve held one of Billy's hands, Jane held the other. They walked like this until they got to the locked exit door, which Jane easily blew aside. Now bullets where flying at them and hitting an invisible force field of sorts, bouncing and hitting the dirt. 

The three started running, and Billy was floating on such an adrenaline high that he didn't even notice the thin line of blood coming from his nose or the way his step slightly faltered. They kept running  until there was cover, until they could catch their breath. The lab wouldn't chase them into a town. At least, they hoped not.

Catching his breath, crouching into the shadows of an alleyway, Steve asked, "How did you do all of that?"

But the pause in life-or-death was catching up to Billy, and he sunk down to the dirty ground, exhausted. Steve was by his side, shaking his shoulder, flinching at every car that sped by. Jane was also tired, but she held herself up better. Billy had never used so much of his abilities before. He felt like sleeping for a few years before dealing with anything else, but Steve forced him to his feet, arm under Billy's pits, helping him balance. 

They checked into the cheapest hotel they could find, secure in their capabilities to fight off anyone that tried to attack them. Jane went to the bed closest to the window, sat back against the headboard, knees tucked up under her chin. Billy fell flat against the other mattress, barely able to keep his eyes open. 

"Hey," Steve groaned. "We should get you cleaned up."

"I wouldn't be able to heal a paper cut right now, Harrington." Billy spoke into the pillow, voice muffled. 

"I'll help," Steve said, tugging on Billy's hand. "Let's at least wash all the blood off."

In the hotel bathroom (Steve hoped his dad wouldn't check his credit card bill) Billy sat on the closed lid of the toilet while Steve gingerly wiped at his face. "I won't break," Billy muttered. But his eyes remained closed. Steve thought that maybe Billy would fall asleep right there on the toilet. 

"What you did back there..." Steve started. This got Billy to open his eyes. 

"They won't be coming after us," Billy assured him. His hand wrapped around Steve's wrist, stopping his hand from cleaning for a moment. "I'm so sorry, Steve."

"You don't have to apologize," Steve shrugged. He remembered the heartbreak he felt waking up alone all those mornings ago, and wondered if it was easy for Billy to just leave.

"I can't explain what happened," Billy said. "It was like something was pulling back to Cali. Maybe it was the lab. Maybe--" he stopped suddenly, shook his head. "I'm sorry I put you through everything."

Steve offered him a weak smile, dabbed at the smear of blood on Billy's cupid's bow. "We should just rest now."

Billy nodded and followed Steve out of the bathroom. Jane had tucked herself under the blanket, and was facing the window. Steve peered and saw that her eyes were closed, so he turned and pressed a quick kiss to Billy's lips. 

As Billy fell asleep wrapped in Steve's arms, he thought about how great it felt to not want to run away from everything.

\---------------

The fields of grass were dry and dead, just like everywhere else. There was no point in picking a flower, in buying some. It had been years since Billy had visited his mother's grave, and he tearfully asked Steve if they could stop there before leaving California. Steve was hesitant, not wanting to spend more time in the state than necessary, but he took one look at Billy's unhealed bruises and thought that the exposure risk would be worth it. 

Now Billy sank in to the crunchy dry grass around the plot. It wasn't fresh, and it didn't have any of the adornments that the other graves did; offerings of remembrance because it was easier to gift flowers when people are dead. The plot was simple. Cheap. It had his mother's name, the years she was alive. Steve stood at a distance to give Billy space for this. Billy bowed his head and tried to imagine Heaven, like his mom believed, wondered if she went there even if it wasn't real. 

He told her that he was sorry for using his abilities, but explained that he needed to. That he could handle it, he could handle his dad, he could handle Indiana.

when he stood up, brushing a few grains of dirt from his jeans, he thought that one day he might come back to California. One day, he might bring Steve here and they could enjoy the ocean as it should be, not as a fight for life but for the wild and pure enjoyment of waves breaking against skin and the current carrying you away. He might come back, when it was safer, when he understood things better.

But for just then, he said goodbye to his mother (he never had before) and grabbed Steve's hand to walk back to his car and start the long drive back to Indiana.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized that it's been months..... I'm so sorry but sometimes I really hate everything and it's finals season baby what better time to do literally anything else other than study!!!
> 
> Also I'm sorry if the ending seemed rushed I just felt horrible for leaving it unfinished for so long. There is a lot of opportunity for expansion or details (and I might write more but for now this particular story has an ending).
> 
> thanks for reading!!!

**Author's Note:**

> im trying so hard to be coherent in my writing but i hope it doesnt turn out to be more garbage!!!!!!
> 
> i'll update tags and stuff as i go but i gotta go to work sorry


End file.
